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EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


By the Same Author . 

The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. 

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EVERY-DAY RELIGION 


OR 

THE COMMON-SENSE TEACHING OF 
THE BIBLE 


BY 


HANNAH WHITALL SMITH 

• n 

AUTHOR OF “THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE 


1 Let them learn first to show piety at home 


FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
New York Chicago Toronto 
Publishers of Evangelical Literature 




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1893 ; 

Fleming H. Revell Company. 

Thb Library 

of Conoress 


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171, 173 Macdougal Street, New York 







INTRODUCTION. 


The object of the present series of Bible Readings is to 
bring out, as far as possible, the common-sense teach¬ 
ing of the Bible in regard to every-day religion. In pre¬ 
paring these Lessons, I have aimed not so much to get at 
the doctrinal truths of our religion, as at the every-day 
practical common-sense principles. How to live a Christ- 
like life in the midst of an un-Christ-like world ; how to 
have inward peace in the midst of outward turmoil; how 
to see the hand of God in every-day matters, and how to 
accept the homely details of His will; how to be seated in 
heavenly places when in the drawing-room, or the kitchen, 
or the nursery, or the schoolroom, or the shop; when 
entertaining friends, or darning stockings, or selling goods, 
or managing affairs; how, in short, to apply the principles 
of our religion to our week-day lives as well as to our 
Sunday lives;—this is the object of these Lessons. 

No one, therefore, must come to them with any expec¬ 
tation of finding a body of doctrine or a statement of 
religious mysteries. But if any one desires to get at the 
common-sense of our religion, behind or beneath all that 
may seem uncommon or esoteric, they will find here an 


VI 


INTRODUCTION. 


effort, very imperfect, it is true, but still a genuine effort 
to reach this common-sense basis, and to make it avail¬ 
able for daily use. 

The religion of the Bible is, I firmly believe, a religion 
“made for man” in a far deeper sense than is generally 
recognised. It is not only pure religion, but it is pure 
common-sense as well. To be a Christian means, to my 
mind, to be a sensible man as well as a religious one; and 
to follow out Christian principles is to follow out the 
highest reason and the purest philosophy. 

In sending out this series of Bible Lessons, therefore, 
I can only pray that the same Holy Spirit that inspired 
the Bible may enable us to lay hold of its truest meaning, 
as this meaning affects our every-day and common-place 
lives. 


HANNAH WHITALL SMITH, 





C O N T E N T S. 


LESSON 


INTRODUCTION . 

I. THAT YE MAY KNOW 

II. SOUL FOOD 

III. WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 

IV. YIELD, TRUST, OBEY. 


V. 


ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVAN 


S 


VI. “ME!” . 

VII. THE WILL IN RELIGION . 

VIII. REJOICE IN THE LORD 

IX. THE MEANING OF TROUBLE 

X. THE HIDDEN GOD 

XI. NO THING Versus ALL THINGS . 

XII. TAKING UP THE CROSS . 

XIII. THE LAW OF FAITH . 

XIV. THE LAW OF LIFE . 

XV. THE LAW OF LOVE . 

XVI. THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS- . 

XVII. “SIT STILL” .... 
XVIII. WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? . 


vii 


PAGE 
w V 

. I 

• 14 

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• 36 

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• 58 

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. 94 

. 106 
. 121 

- 133 
. 146 

• *57 

. 172 
. 189 

. 201 
. 214 

. 228 


XIX, TEMPTATION 










EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


LESSON I. 

THAT YE MAY KNOW. 

Foundation Text “These things have I written unto you that 
believe on the name of the Son of God ; that ye may know that ye 
have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son 
of God.” — i John v. 13. 

One of the most common-sense principles in every-day 
life is a clear knowledge of one’s earthly position and 
one’s earthly possessions. And nothing is plainer in 
the Bible than that we were meant to have this know¬ 
ledge in our religious life as well. Uncertainties are 
fatal to all true progress, and are utterly destructive of 
comfort or peace. And yet it has somehow become the 
fashion among Christians to encourage uncertainties in 
the spiritual life, as being an indication of the truest 
form of piety. There is a great deal of longing and 
hoping among Christians, but there is not much know¬ 
ing. And yet the whole Bible was written for the pur- 
pose of making us know. The object of a revelation is 
to reveal. If nothing has been revealed to us by the 
Bible beyond longings and hopes, it has failed of its 
purpose for us. But I fear a large proportion of God’s 

A 


2 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


children never get beyond these hopes and longings. 
“I hope my sins will be forgiven some day;” “ I hope 
I may be favoured to reach heaven at last;”“I hope 
God loves me ;” “I hope Christ died for me.” These 
are samples of the style of much Christian testimony in 
the present day. Indeed, I have even known Christians 
who could never get further than to say, “ I hope that 
I have a hope.” If this word were used in the sense 
that the Bible always uses it, that is, in the sense of firm 
expectation, it might be all right; but in the use of it 
which I have described, there is so great an element of 
doubt, that it does not amount to a Bible hope at all. 
We need sometimes to bring our words out into the 
light of common-sense to see what we really do mean 
by them, and I am afraid in very many cases we should 
find that the word “hope” would mean, being interpreted, 
the word “ doubt.” 

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but 
the spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things 
that are freely given to us of God” (i Cor. ii. 12). 

The Holy Spirit is given to Christians, not to make 
them have longings and hopes only, but to enable them 
to “ know the things that are freely given to us of God.” 
Doubts and uncertainties about spiritual things belong 
to the spirit of this world, knowledge belongs to the 
spirit which is of God. As long as we fail to say “ I 
know ” in regard to spiritual things, just so long are we 
allowing the “ spirit of this world ” to rule instead of 
the spirit which is of Godc 

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence 
of His disciples, which are not written in this book : but 
these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the 



THAT YE MAY KNOW. 


3 


Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might have 
life through His name” (John xx. 30, 31). 

u He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness 
in himself; he that believeth not God hath made Him a 
liar ; because he believeth not the record that God gave of 
His Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us 
eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John v. 10, 11). 

I he “ record” God has given us of His Son has been 
given for the express purpose of making us know that 
in His Son we have eternal life. “This is the record,” 
/>., that God hath given to us eternal life in Christ, 
and whoever believes in Christ has this life; and of 
course, ought to know it. If we do not believe this 
record, and consequently do not know that we have 
eternal life, we are “ making God a liar.” These a»-e 
solemn words, and yet, taking the common-sense view 
of things, what is a doubt of God’s record but the mak¬ 
ing a liar of God? If I doubt the record of one of my 
friends, I do in effect make that friend a liar, although 
I may never dare to use the word. The only way in 
which we can really honour God is to declare that what 
He says is always true, and that we know it to be true; 
and are sure therefore that we have eternal life, because 
He says so, let the seemings to the contrary be what 
they may. 

In the Bible it is always taken for granted that we 
know. In his first Epistle John says, “ I have not 
written unto you because ye know not the truth, but 
because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” 
He could hardly say the same in these days 1 “ We 

know that the Son of man is come ; ” “ We know that 
we are of God ; ” “ We know the things that are freely 




4 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


given us of God ; ” “I know whom I have believed; ” 
“We know that all things work together for good;” “If 
I should say I know Him not, I should lie; ” “We know 
that when He shall appear we shall be like Him;” “We 
know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” The Bible 
is full of declarations like these; but how would they 
sound if we should substitute in them all the word hope 
for the word know? Never anywhere in the whole 
Bible are we given the slightest intimation that God’s 
children were to be anything but perfectly sure of their 
relationship to Him as children, and of His relationship 
to them as Father. The flood of doubt and questioning, 
that so often overwhelms Christian hearts in these days, 
was apparently never so much as conceived of in Bible 
times nor by Bible Christians, and consequently it was 
nowhere definitely provided against. The one uniform 
foundation upon which were based all commands and 
ail exhortations, was the fact, taken for granted, that of 
course those to whom the commands and exhortations 
were addressed, knew that they were God’s children, 
and that He was their Father. 

“ I write unto you, little children, because your sins are 
forgiven you for His name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, 
because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. 

1 write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the 
wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye 
have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, 
because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. 

I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, 
and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome 
the wicked one” (i John ii. 12-14), 



THAT YE MAY KNOW. 


5 


Even the little children in Bible times were supposed 
to know that their sins were forgiven, and that God was 
their Father. In fact, common-sense would tell us that 
the knowledge of one’s position and standing in any 
relation of life is always the essential foundation of all 
action in that relation; and how Christians ever came 
to tolerate (if they do not even sometimes inculcate) such 
a mist of doubt and uncertainty in regard to the soul’s 
relations with God, is incomprehensible to me. 

No service could be rightly performed by any Israelite 
who was doubtful as to his nationality or his family 
record. 

In the first chapter of Numbers we are told that 
only those Israelites who could “ declare their pedigree ” 
might be numbered among the men of war; and in the 
second chapter of Ezra no one who could not “find his 
register” and “reckon his genealogy,” was allowed to 
exercise the office of priest. Any doubts and uncer¬ 
tainties on these points made them “ as polluted,” and 
consequently unfit to serve (see Num. i. 2, 17, 18; ii. 2; 
Ezra ii. 62, 63). I believe the same thing is also true 
of Christians now. We can neither be numbered among 
the Lord’s soldiers, nor enter into priestly relations with 
Him, until we also can. “declare our pedigree ” as chil¬ 
dren of God, and “ reckon our genealogy ” as being born 
of Him. 

There seems something very anomalous in the fact of 
a man undertaking to call people back to their Father’s 
house, who does not know whether he himself has any 
right there or not. And yet I fear it is far too common 
a thing for even clergymen not to know anything cer¬ 
tain in regard to their spiritual “pedigree” or “genea- 




6 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


logy.” I knew a congregation of Quakers where at one 
time a Friend had been for a year or two “ exercising 
his gift in the ministry.” Among the Quakers, “mini¬ 
sters ” are not made by colleges or by bishops, but, after 
a man or woman has “exercised their gift” in the con¬ 
gregation for a sufficient length of time, the spiritually 
minded in that congregation meet together and decide 
whether, in their judgment, their friend has really re¬ 
ceived from the Lord a “gift in the ministry;” and if 
their decision is favourable, that gift is then acknowledged, 
and that friend becomes an “acknowledged ” or “recom¬ 
mended ” minister. The case of the Friend I speak of 
had been laid before the spiritually-minded members of 
his meeting several times for “acknowledgment,” but a 
favourable decision could never be arrived at, because 
one man invariably declined to sanction it. The Friend 
in question finally asked this man the reason of hk 
persistent opposition. After a little hesitation, the man 
replied it had been a great grief to him that he could 
not unite in acknowledgment of the Friend’s gift, “but,” 
said he, “ I have listened to thy preaching very carefully, 
and I have heard thee very often express a £ humble 
hope’that at some future time the forgiveness of sins 
and the gift of eternal life might be thy portion; but I 
have never heard thee express one single time the know¬ 
ledge or belief that these blessings had really been 
bestowed upon thee; and I cannot feel that it is right to 
encourage any man to preach a gospel to others, about 
which he himself has so little knowledge.” This reply 
left the Friend without excuse, and he inwardly resolved 
never again to open his mouth to tell others about eternal 
life in Christ until he could say with assurance that he 



THAT YE MAY KNOW. 


7 


knew that that eternal life was his own. Ashamed of 
the uncertainty, which before he had cherished as a sign 
of humility, he went to the Word of God to see what 
was there taught. His faith laid hold of the announce¬ 
ment in i John v. i, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus 
is the Christ, is born of God,” and he said, “ I do be¬ 
lieve that Jesus is the Christ with all my heart; and God 
says that if I do this I am born of Him; therefore I 
know I must be His child; ” and he was able from that 
moment boldly to assert it in the face of every seeming 
to the contrary. 

“ But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent 
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to 
redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive 
the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath 
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, 
Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but 
a son ; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” 
(Gal. iv. 4-7). 

“The adoption of sons;” surely this is an adoption 
about which there can be no uncertainty! One would 
think that we for whom Christ died could not question 
a fact so plainly stated, nor refuse in response to call 
God our Father! And yet how many do refuse, and 
think it is presumptiorl to call God their Father, or to 
take their places boldly as His undoubted sons and heirs. 

“Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have 
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice 
in hope of the glory of God ” (Rom. v. 1, 2). 

“ Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 
perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. vii. 1). 




8 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


“ Having therefore these promises/’ and, of course, 
knowing that we have them; “ being justified by faith,” 
and, of course, knowing that we are, this is the necessary 
ground of all peace and all purity. Had these passages 
read differently, had the Apostle begun by saying, “ There¬ 
fore, feeling very doubtful as to whether we are justified 
or not,” could he have gone on to say so triumphantly, 
“ we have peace with God ” ? Would he not rather have 
found it necessary to continue in the same doubtful strain, 
and to say, “We are very hungry for peace with God, 
but we do not know whether we have it or not”? 

If we were to introduce into the Bible the spirit of 
uncertainty and doubt that fills the churches to-day, it 
would revolutionise the Book! 

If you will look at the opening verses of each Epistle, 
you will see that they are all addressed to people of whom 
it was taken for granted that they knew, without a shadow 
of doubt, their standing as reconciled and forgiven chil¬ 
dren of God. I give only two samples. 


“ To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be 
samts : Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and 
the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. i. 7). 

t0 , bean a P° stle of Jesus Christ through 
the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church 
of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in 
Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place 
call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs 
and ours: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our 
father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. i. 1-3). 

Imagine the Epistles addressed to doubters, and how 
different their contents would have been! 

Again, notice the present tense of assured possession 



THAT YE MAY KNOW. 


9 


throughout every Epistle. Take, for instance, as a sample, 
the first seven verses of the Epistle to the Ephesians. 

Notice “hath blessed,” “ hath chosen,” “having pre¬ 
destinated us unto the adoption of children,” “hath made 
us accepted in the beloved,” “ we have redemption.” 
And these are only samples. Every Epistle is full of 
similar tenses of present possession. 

Again notice how invariably all the exhortations to 
holiness are based upon an assured knowledge of our 
position as the children of God. 

“ Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not 
yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when He 
shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as 
He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth 
himself, even as He is pure” (i John iii. 1-3). 

“And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are 
sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and 
wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put 
away from you, with all malice : and be ye kind one to an¬ 
other, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God 
for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. iv. 30-32). 

We are not called upon to forgive one another in order 
to induce Christ to forgive us, but we are to forgive others, 
because we first know that He has already forgiven us. 
We are not commanded to be followers of God in order 
to become His children, but because we know we are 
His children. 

A man cannot act like a king unless he knows that he 
is a king; and similarly we cannot act like the sons of 
God unless we know that we are His sons. In fact, the 
knowledge of our position and standing is the essental 
foundation of everything else in the Christian life. 

The vital question, then, is how we can come to know. 





IO 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


Our foundation text tells us, “ These things are written 
that we may know.” We must believe the things that 
are written in the “record ” God has given us of His Son. 
Then we will know. For believing is the same as knowing, 
where the person we believe is absolutely trustworthy. 
There are human beings whose word is so absolutely 
trustworthy, that we would believe them even almost 
against the testimony of our own senses; and surely 
God’s word can be no less trustworthy. 

“ God is not a man that He should lie, neither the Son 
of man that He should repent: hath He said, and shall 
He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not 
make it good ? ” If I see therefore that He has unmis¬ 
takably said anything, I may boldly say I know it, 
even though every feeling I have should declare the 
contrary. 

“ He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of 
the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth : he that 
cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen 
and heard, that he testifieth ; and no man receiveth his 
testimony. He that hath received his testimony hath set to 
his seal that God is true” (John iii. 31—33). 

Contrast the expression used here, “hath set to his 
seal that God is true,” with the expression we noticed a 
little while ago, “hath made God a liar.” Which is it 
you do, dear reader ? 

We often hear the expression used, “ I know such and 
such a thing is true because such or such a person says 
so,” and this, even when we may have no other testimony 
than that person’s word, and in spite of the fact that we 
are well aware men often lie. But we seem afraid to 



THAT YE MAY KNOW. 


ii 


sa y, I know such and such things are true because 
God says so,” although we are perfectly sure it is 
impossible for Him to lie. 

I believe the explanation of this strange inconsistency 
may be found in the fact, that most people do not accept 
God s testimony as being really final, but look for some 
feeling or emotion of their own to witness to its tru.h. 
“ I could believe such and such things to be true, if 1 
could only feel that they were.” In earthly matters we 
never are so foolish as to make facts depend upon our 
feelings; but in religious matters a great many seem to 
think this is the right way. How we ever came to 
think so, I cannot imagine; for a little exercise of com¬ 
mon-sense would tell us that facts can never in any 
region depend upon feelings, but feelings must always 
in all things depend upon facts. The divine order is 
always first to get your facts; then to put faith in those 
facts; and then, as a natural result, will follow the 
feelings commensurate with the facts. This order is 
always followed in earthly things by every sane person. 
But curiously enough in religious matters a great many 
people, otherwise very sensible, reverse this order, and 
put feelings first, then faith in those feelings, and come 
to the facts last, looking upon these facts, one would 
suppose, as the result of their feelings. 

To show how foolish this course is, let us imagine a 
man intending to take a voyage to a distant country, who 
should go to the docks and get on board the first vessel 
that came to hand, and should then retire to his state¬ 
room, and sit down with his eyes shut, to try and “feel ” 
whether he was on the right vessel or not! Such foolish¬ 
ness is inconceivable in any sane human being about 




12 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


earthly things, and yet, strange to say, it is looked upon 
as being all right in regard to heavenly things. 

“ If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is 
greater : for this is the witness of God, which He hath testified 
of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the 
witness in himself; he that believeth not God hath made 
Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God 
gave of His Son. And this is the record, that God hath 
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He 
that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son 
of God hath not life. These things have I written unto 
you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye 
may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe 
on the name of the Son of God” (i John v. 9-13). 

In the case of going aboard the vessel the “witness 
of men,” or, in other words, the assurance from some 
one who knew, would be the only source of peace. 
And in the case of the Christian the “ witness of God,” 
or in other words, God’s assurance that He hath given 
to us eternal life in His Son, cannot fail to bring perfect 
peace, if only we will believe it. 

A great many, however, will say, “Ah, yes, I could 
easily believe it, if only I had the witness in myself, as 
the Bible says I am to have.” When are you to have 
that witness in yourself? before you believe, or after? 
Does it say, “ he that hath the witness in himself shall 
believe,” or does it say, “he that believeth hath the 
witness ” ? It makes all the difference which way you 
read it, whether you put the believing first, or the 
witness first. The Bible puts the believing first; which 
do you ? 

“ At tha * day ye shall know that I am in my Father and 
ye in me, and I in you” (John xiv. 20). 




THAT YE MAY KNOW. 


13 


The day of knowledge will dawn for us when we come 
to the point of implicitly believing God ! 

It must be understood, however, that this knowledge 
will come to us not as a feeling but as a perception. I 
mean that we shall know it, even though we may not 
feel it at all. We do not “feel” that two and two 
make four, but we know it; and to know is a far more 
valuable and stable a matter than merely to feel. What 
would we think of a teacher in mathematics who should 
tell his pupils they were to “ feel ” whether or not the 
multiplication table w r as correct ? One’s studies in mathe¬ 
matics must be based on a much more stable founda¬ 
tion than feeling, if they are to stand the test of facts; 
and one’s experience in spiritual things must be the 
same. We ought to be, and we may be, as sure of God 
and His love, and of our relations to Him, as we are 
sure that two and two make four. Feelings may do for 
Sundays, or for exceptional occasions of special religious 
experience, but knowledge is the only thing that will 
avail us in our every-day life. 

In all the lessons in this book my object is to help 
souls to this place of knowledge. I want that we should 
each one lay aside our conventional pre-conceived ideas 
of religion, and get if possible at the heart of the matter, 
the absolute truth; that is, the truth as it is, not in 
traditions, nor in creeds, nor in prejudices, but as it 
is in Jesus. May the blessed Holy Spirit be our Guide 
and Teacher through all this book 1 




LESSON II. 

SOUL FOOD. 

Foundation Text :—“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye 
to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; 
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 
Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? and 
your labour for that which satisfieth not ? hearken diligently unto 
me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself 
in fatness.”— Isa. lv. i, 2. 

Good common-sense must tell us that our souls need 
daily food just as much as our bodies. If it is a law in 
physical life that we must eat to live, it is also equally a 
law in spiritual life. 

“ Give us this day our daily bread,” is a prayer that 
includes the soul as well as the body, and unless the 
religion of Christ contains this necessary food for our 
week-day lives, as well as for our Sunday lives, it is a 
grievous failure. But this it does. It is full of principles 
that fit into human life, as it is in its ordinary common¬ 
place aspects; and the soul that would grow strong must 
feed itself on these, as well as on the more dainty fare of 
sermons and services and weekly celebrations. 

But it is of vital importance that we choose the right 
sort of spiritual food upon which to feed. If unwhole¬ 
some physical food injures the physical health, so also 
must unwholesome mental food injure the spiritual health. 
There is such a thing as spiritual indigestion, just as there 


SOUL FOOD. 


*5 


is physical indigestion. More and more the most skilful 
physicians are urging the fact that the state of our health 
is largely dependent upon the food we eat; and gradually 
mankind are learning that to secure good health for our 
bodies we must eat only health-giving food. This is 
equally true on the spiritual plane, although it is not so 
generally recognised. The laws of spiritual hygiene are 
as real and as inexorable as the laws of physical hygiene, 
and it is of vital importance to our soul health that we 
should realise this. 

Some German women have fallen into the habit of 
“naschen,” that is, of nibbling comfits and cakes all day 
long. They carry “cornets” of bon-bons in their pockets, 
and nibble at them continually. No one wonders that 
they suffer greatly from disordered digestions, and become 
sallow, and irritable, and old before their time. And 
does not plain common-sense teach us that, when people 
feed their souls upon a diet of novels, or of gossip, or of 
frivolities of every kind, they must necessarily suffer from 
languor of spiritual life, debility of spiritual digestion, 
failure of vitality, and a creeping moral paralysis. 

“And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a 
lusting: and t e children of Israel also wept again, and 
said, Who shall give us flesh to eat ? We remember the 
fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and 
the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick : 
but now our soul is dried away : there is nothing at all, 
beside this manna, before our eyes” (Num. xi. 4-6). 

“But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted 
God in the desert. And He gave them their request; but 
sent leanness into their soul” (Ps. cvi. 15). 

“ Leanness of soul ” arises far more often than we think 
from the indigestible nature of the spiritual food we have 



i6 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


been feeding upon. We are not satisfied to eat the food 
God has provided for us, and we hunger for the flesh- 
pots of Egypt.” (See also Exod. xvi. 3, and Num. 
xxi. 5.) 

We do not like our providential surroundings perhaps, 
or our church, or our preacher, or our work, or our family 
associations, and we are all the time thinking we could 
be better Christians if only our circumstances were dif¬ 
ferent, if we could attend a different church, or move into 
a different neighbourhood, or engage in a different *t>rt 
of work. Our souls “loathe the light food” of God’s 
providing; and we question, as the Israelites did, whether 
God is really able to provide the spiritual food necessary 
for us in the “wilderness,” where He seems to have 
appointed our dwelling-place. 

“Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God 
furnish a table in the wilderness ? Behold, He smote the 
rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams over¬ 
flowed ; can He give bread also ? can He provide flesh 
for His people ? Therefore the Lord heard this, and was 
wroth” (Ps. lxxviii. 19-21). 

The “wrath of God” is only another name for the 
inevitable results of our own bad actions. God’s wrath 
is never, as human wrath generally is, an arbitrary condi¬ 
tion of His mind, resulting from His displeasure at being 
crossed ; but it is simply the necessary result of a broken 
law, the inevitable reaping of that which has been sown. 
If a man eats unsuitable food he will have indigestion. 
An untaught savage might say that it was the wrath of 
God that had brought the indigestion upon him, but we, 
who understand the laws of health, know that his indi¬ 
gestion is simply the necessary re^u't of the unsuitable 



SOUL FOOD. 


17 


food he has eaten. And similarly the sickly spiritual 
condition of so many Christians is not, as they sometimes 
think, a direct infliction of God’s displeasure, but is 
simply and only the necessary consequence of the unsuit¬ 
able and indigestible spiritual food upon which they have 
been feeding. 

“ Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east 
wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation” (Hosea 
xii. 1). 

“ He feedeth on ashes ; a deceived heart hath turned 
him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there 
not a lie in my right hand?” (Isa. xliv. 20). 

The soul that feeds on the “ wind of doctrine,” or on 
the “ashes” of earthly vanity, will find itself brought 
into a state of great desolation and distress; and this, 
not because of God’s wrath, according to our understand¬ 
ing of that expression, but because of the unchangeable 
law of spiritual hygiene, that improper soul food must 
produce illness of soul, just as improper food for the 
body must make the body ill. 

What, then, is the proper food for the soul? What is 
the daily bread our Lord would have us eat ? He tells 
us in that wonderful discourse in the sixth chapter of 
John, when He says, “ I am the bread of life,” and adds, 
“ Whoever eateth me, even he shall live by me.” (See 
John vi. 48-58). 

To many people this is a very mysterious passage, and 
I do not at all feel competent to explain it theologically. 
But it has a common-sense side as well, which has a very- 
practical application to one’s every-day life, and it is of 
this side I want to speak. 

Very few persons realise the effect of thought upon the 

B 




i8 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


condition of the soul, that it is in fact its food, the sub¬ 
stance from which it evolves its strength and health and 
beauty, or upon which it may become weak and unhealthy 
and deformed. The things we think about are the things 
we feed upon. If we think low and corrupt thoughts, 
we bring diseases upon our soul, just as really as we 
bring diseases upon our body by eating corrupt and im¬ 
proper food. The man who thinks about self, feeds on 
self, just in proportion to the amount of thought he gives 
to self; and may at last become puffed up with self, and 
suffer from the dreadful disease of self-conceit and self- 
importance. On the other hand, if we think of Christ 
we feed on Christ. We eat His flesh and blood practi¬ 
cally, by filling our souls with believing thoughts of Him. 
The Jews said, “ How can this man give us His flesh to 
eat ? ” And a great many people say the same to-day. 
I think my suggestions will show one way at least in 
which He can give it; and I know that any who try this 
plan of filling their souls with believing thoughts of Christ 
will find practically that they do feed upon Him, to the 
joy and delight of their hearts. He tells us this when 
He.says, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh 
profiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they 
are spirit, and they are life,” He meant them to under¬ 
stand that to feed on Him was to receive and believe 
His words; that it was not His literal flesh they were to 
eat, but the words that He spake unto them ; that is, the 
truths that He taught them. 

“ Thy words were found, and I did eat them ; and thy 
word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for 
I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jer. 
xv. 16). 



SOUL FOOD. 


19 


I was once teaching a Bible-class of old coloured men, 
when one of them stopped a long time over a verse he 
was reading. I asked him at last what was the matter, 
whether he could not understand it ? “ Oh yes, Missus,” 

he replied, “I understands it fine, and it tasted so 
good that I was just waiting a minute to get a good eat 
off of it” 

“ Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou 
findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. 
So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that roll.* 
And He said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, 
and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then 
did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweet¬ 
ness ” (Ezek. iii. 1-3). 

If we will take the words of God, His revealed 
truth, into our lips and eat it; that is, if we will dwell 
upon His words and say them over and over to ourselves, 
and thoroughly take in and assimilate their meaning in 
a common-sense sort of way, we shall find that our soul- 
life is fed and nourished by them, and is made strong 
and vigorous in consequence. 

“ Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso¬ 
ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if 
there be any praise, think on these things ” (Phil. iv. 8). 

The things we think on are the things that feed our 
souls. If we think on pure and lovely things we shall 
grow pure and lovely like them; and the converse is 
equally true. Very few people at all realise this, and 
consequently there is a great deal of carelessness, even 
with careful people, in regard to their thoughts. They 





20 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


guard their words and actions with the utmost care, but 
their thoughts, which, after all, are the very spring and 
root of everything in character and life, they neglect 
entirely. So long as it is not put into spoken words, it 
seems of no consequence at all as to what goes on within 
the mind. No one hears or knows, and therefore they 
imagine that the vagrant thoughts that come and go as 
they list, do no harm. Such persons are very careless as to 
the food offered to their thoughts, and accept hap-hazard, 
without discrimination, anything that comes. Hence, 
from carelessness as regards the books they read or the 
company they keep, they may be continually imbibing 
as their soul’s food the objectionable ideas of the un¬ 
believer, or the sensualist, or the worldly-minded, or the 
agnostic, or the Pharisee. It is not possible to carry 
this on for any length of time without inducing soul- 
diseases. A vitiation of mind and character is effected, 
and gradually all delicate distinctions between faith and 
unfaith, good and evil, purity and impurity, are more and 
more obliterated. The soul feeds itself on doubt instead 
of faith, or on coarseness instead of refinement, and 
becomes correspondingly bewildered or corrupt. 

“ But those things which proceed out of the mouth come 
forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out 
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, 
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies : these are 
the things which defile a man ; but to eat with unwashen 
hands defileth not a man” (Matt. xv. 18-20). 

“ Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this 
people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have 
not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected 
it” (Jer. vi. 19). 

The “fruit of our thoughts” is just as sure to come 



SOUL FOOD. 


21 


upon us as the fruit of our actions, little as we may have 
realised it The laws of hygiene are as absolute in the 
realm of spirit as in the realm of matter. It is of the 
utmost importance for us to recognise this, for these laws 
work on inexorably, whether we know it or not; and 
all unconsciously to ourselves we may be at this very 
moment vitiating and degrading our soul-life by the 
thoughts we are indulging, the books we are reading, or 
the company we are keeping. 

The Apostle sets before us the hope of having all our 
thoughts brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 
(See 2 Cor. x. 5.) This cannot mean of course that we 
are to be thinking of Christ every minute. A little 
exercise of common-sense will show us that this is neither 
possible nor desirable. But it means that we are to have 
Christ’s thoughts about things instead of our own, that 
we are to look at things as He does, and are to judge as 
He judges. And this we are to do with “ every thought,” 
not with our Sunday thoughts only, but with our week¬ 
day thoughts as well. It would never do for the health 
of our bodies to be careful of our food on Sundays only, 
and pay no regard to what we should eat the rest of the 
week; and similarly, it is idiotic to expect our souls to 
thrive if they are provided with suitable food on Sundays 
alone, and are left to feed on ashes throughout the other 
days of the week. Neither will little doses of suitable 
food now and then do. One hour of a Christ-like way 
of looking at things will not make much headway in the 
matter of the soul’s health against ten hours of un-Christ- 
like ways. Every thought we think, in every hour we 
live, must be, not necessarily about Christ, but it must be 
the thought Christ would think were He placed in our 



22 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


circumstances and subject to our conditions. This is 
what it means really to feed on Him and be nourished 
by the true bread of life that cometh down from 
heaven. 

The disciples, when they heard of this living bread, 
prayed, “ Lord, evermore give us this bread; ” and, if we 
join in their prayer, He can only reply to us as He did 
to them, “ Here I am; lam the bread of life ; come to 
me, believe on me, feed your souls with faith in me and 
with my thoughts.” For again, I would repeat that the 
most practical way I know of for feeding on Christ is to 
fill our souls with His thoughts. We must do with Him 
as we would with any great master in art or science, 
whose spirit we wished to assimilate, and whose works 
we wished to copy. We must study His life, and try to 
understand His spirit, and imbue ourselves with His 
ideas. We must, in short, make Him our constant 
mental companion; we must abide with Him and in 
Him, and let Him abide in us. We must let the under¬ 
lying thoughts of our heart, at the bottom of all other 
thoughts, be of the Lord and of all His goodness and 
His love; and all we do and all we think must be founded 
on these bottom thoughts concerning Him. For again, 
I repeat, that the things we think about are the things 
our souls feed upon, and if we want to feed on Christ 
we must think His thoughts. I do not mean literally have 
Him consciously in our thoughts every moment, but, 
rather, as I have said, have faith in Him at the bottom 
of our thoughts, as the foundation upon which they all 
rest, and we must accept all His ideas as our own. 

“Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be 
ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, 



SOUL FOOD. 


23 


and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto 
Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the 
same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual 
drink : for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed 
them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. x. 1-4). 

As far as we can gather from their history, the way i 1 
which the Israelites in their wanderings ate and drank of 
Christ, was simply by believing what God said, accepting 
what He provided, and obeying what He commanded. 
There was nothing occult or mysterious about it. They 
did not go off into emotional ecstasies, nor indulge in 
self-absorbed contemplation. Their spiritual feeding was 
just a plain matter-of-fact every-day life and walk of trust 
and obedience. When they ate of the manna they were 
eating “spiritual meat,” for it was the meat God had 
provided, and the rock from which their water flowed 
was a “ spiritual rock,” for it was the rock and the water 
of God’s providing. 

This ought to teach us that in the common every-day 
needs and supplies of life we may as truly feed on Christ 
as in our moments of spiritual exaltation. 

It is in order that some may be helped to eat this same 
“spiritual meat,” and drink this same “spiritual drink,” 
in their every-day lives, that these Bible lessons have 
been sent out. May the Lord make them His message 
to each one who shall read them ! 



LESSON III. 

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


Foundation Text: —“While the Pharisees were gathered to¬ 
gether, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ?”— 
Matt. xxii. 41, 42. 

The crucial question for each one of us in our every-day 
life is just this, “What think ye of Christ?” To some 
the question may seem to require a doctrinal answer, 
and I do not at all say that there is no idea of doctrines 
involved in it. But to my mind the doctrinal answer, 
valuable as it may be, is not the one of most importance 
for every day. The vital answer is the one that would 
contain our own personal knowledge of the character of 
Christ; not what He is doctrinally, but what He is in¬ 
trinsically, in Himself. For, after all, our salvation does 
not depend upon the doctrines concerning Christ, but 
upon the person of Christ Himself, upon what He is and 
upon what He does. 

“For the which cause I also suffer these things : never¬ 
theless I am not ashamed : for I know whom I have 
believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that 
which I have committed unto Him against that day” 
(2 Tim. i. 12). 

Paul knew Him, therefore Paul could trust Him ; and 

if we would trust Him as Paul did, we must know Him 

as intimately. 1 am afraid a great many people are so 

24 


2 5 


WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


taken up with Christian doctrines and dogmas, and are 
so convinced that their salvation is secured because their 

views are sound and orthodox, that they have never 
yet come to a personal acquaintance with Christ Him¬ 
self; and, while knowing a great deal about Him, it may 
be, do not know Him himself at all. They have a sort 
of religion that will do for church going or for Sunday 
work, but they have rrothing that will do for their week¬ 
day living. 

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the know¬ 
ledge of God more than burnt offerings ” (Hosea Vi. 6). 

It is Phillips Brooks, I think, who says, “There are 
two distinct ideas of Christianity. One of them magni¬ 
fies doctrine, and its great sin is heresy. The other 
magnifies loyalty, and its great sin is disloyalty. The 
first enthrones a creed. The second enthrones a person.” 
1 he first is like a carefully collated botanical manual, 
the second is like a living and growing plant. A manual 
may do for a Sunday religion; nothing but life wiil do 
for week-days. Christ always says, Believe in me, not, 
believe this or that about me; but, believe in me. 

“ Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, 
believe also in me” (John xiv. 1). 

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and 
the Life : no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 
If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father 
also : and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen 
Him. Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, 
and it sufficeih us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so 
long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? 
he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how 
sayest thou then, Shew us the Father” (John xiv. 6-9). 





26 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


It is not the doctrines concerning Christ, but what He 
is in Himself, that constitutes the foundation of our faith. 
“ I am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Life,” He says, 
“I myself; and if you knew me, you would know my 
Father also, and would understand that there can be 
nothing in all the universe to make your hearts troubled 
or afraid.” 

Looked at in this light, the que'stion, “ What think ye 
of Christ?” becomes a question of vital personal import 
to each one of us. And it becomes also a question that 
each one can answer personally and individually for him¬ 
self. If it were doctrines only that were in question, we 
might find it necessary to appeal to the creeds and 
dogmas of our own particular sect or denomination in 
order to find out just what we do believe, or at least 
ought to believe. But when it is our personal estimate 
of our Lord and Master that is in question, we can 
surely each one of us discover very easily what our in¬ 
dividual thoughts about Him are; what is our own 
opinion of His character and His ways; what sort of a 
person, in short, we really think Him to be. Is He kind 
and loving, or is He harsh and severe ? Is He trust¬ 
worthy? Is He sympathising? Is He true to His 
promises? Is He faithful? Is He self-sacrificing? Is 
He full of compassion, or is He full of condemnation ? 
Is He our tender brother, or is He our hard task¬ 
master? Does He care most about Himself, or about 
us ? Is He on our side, or against us ? 

It is by our answers to questions like these that we 
shall reveal what our real estimate of Christ is. We may 
have all the Christian doctrines at our fingers’ ends, and 
yet not have the faintest conception of the real character 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


27 


of Christ Himself. And therefore I would urge upon 
us a personal answer to this personal question, “What 
think ye of Christ ?” 

“ Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will 
I deliver him : I will set him on high, because he hath 
known my name” (Ps. xci. 14). 

To “know His name” does not mean to know that 
He was called Christ or Jesus, but it means to know 
His character. God’s namings always mean character. 
They are never arbitrary, as our namings are, having no 
connection with the work or character of the one named. 
They are always revelations. They tell us what the person 
is or what he does. “ Thou shalt call His name Jesus, 
for He shall save His people from their sins;” Jesus 
meaning a Saviour. 

“ So will I make my holy name known in the midst of 
my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy 
name any more : and the heathen shall know that I am the 
Lord, the Holy One in Israel” (Ezek. xxxix. 7). 

To “ pollute God’s holy name ” must mean to attribute 
to Him a character that is contrary to His goodness. 
Continually we find the Lord calling upon the people 
not to profane His name, that is, not to live ancl act and 
talk in such a way as to give others a false idea of His 
character and His works. And continually we find the 
saints of all ages calling upon the people to “praise His 
name,” which is evidently equivalent to praising Himself. 
“ Both young men and maidens ; old men and children ; 
let them praise the name of the Lord; for His name is 
excellent.” “ According to Thy name, O God, so is Thy 
praise unto the ends of the earth.” (See also Ps. cxxxv. 
3, xcvi. 8, &c. &c.) 




28 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


The question, therefore, “ What think ye of Christ ? ” 
may equally well be rendered by the question, “ By what 
name do you call Christ ? ” for name and character are 
one. What, then, are the names we individually are 
bestowing upon our Lord ? In words, no doubt, and 
on Sundays we are calling Him our “ Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ,” but in thought and act in our every-day 
life we are unconsciously calling Him by many other 
names, and some of them, it may be, names that it 
would shock us very much to hear spoken or to see in 
print. So few of us, I fear, really know Him ! 

Ye call me Master and Lord : and ye say well: for so 
I am” (John xiii. 13). 

“ And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things 
which I say ? ” (Luke vi. 46). 

It is of no use for us to call Him “ Master and Lord,” 
while we are refusing to do the things He commands. 
Our words may hide our thoughts, but our actions reveal 
them. If we really think He is our Lord, we will not 
fail to obey Him. It is his thoughts, not his words, 
that control a man’s actions. 

“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people 
draw near me with their mou:h, and with their lips do 
honour me, but have removed their heart far from me and 
their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men • 
therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work 
among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: 
for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the 
understanding of their prudent men shall be hid” (Isa 
xxix. 13, 14). v 

It is very easy to draw nigh to the Lord with our 
mouth, and honour Him with our lips; but the thoughts 




WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


29 


of our hearts, what are they ? Let us test ourselves by 
comparing our secret thoughts of Christ with our public 
words concerning Him. The Bible teaches us to call 
Him by certain names which express what He is. We 
reverently and conscientiously, it may be, use these 
names, as far as words go ) but how is it about our 
thoughts ? Do our words express our thoughts, or do 
our thoughts and our words differ? 

Let us take a very familiar instance. The Bible calls 
Christ by the name of the Good Shepherd, and Christ 
Himself adopts the name as His own. “I am the Good 
Shepherd,” He says. No doubt, each one of us has 
called Him by this name hundreds of times. “The 
Lord is my Shepherd,” we have said, over and over and 
over, times without number, ever since our babyhood. 
But how about our thoughts ? Do they correspond with 
our words ? What do we think of Christ ? Do we 
think of Him as being really and truly our Shepherd, who 
cares for us as a good shepherd cares for his sheep ? Or 
do we feel as if we ourselves were the shepherds, who 
must keep a strict watch over Him, in order to make 
Him faithful to us ? 

There are certain characteristics that our common-sense 
tells us must be required of every good shepherd. He 
must devote himself with all his strength and wisdom to 
the care of his flock. He must forget his own ease and 
comfort in promoting their well-being. He must protect 
them from every danger, and must stand between them 
and all their enemies. He must never forget them nor 
neglect them, and must be willing to lay down his life 
for their sakes. Now, is this what we think of Christ 
when we call Him by the name of Shepherd, if we ever 




30 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


do so call Him, in our every-day life? I very much 
doubt it! I am afraid we look upon Him in regard to 
our daily life as an unfaithful shepherd who forgets and 
neglects his flock; or, as a hireling, who, when he sees 
the wolf coming, “leaveth the sheep and fleeth; ” or as 
the selfish shepherds of Ezekiel’s prophecy, who “ fed 
themselves and fed not the flock.” We honour Him on 
Sundays with our lips, it may be, but alas, the hearts of 
too many, on week-days, are far from Him. 

“ Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and 
honoureth me with their lips ; but their heart is far from me. 
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the 
commandments of men” (Matt. xv. 7-9). 

Or again, take the name of Comforter. How many 
of us take a common-sense view of this name, and 
really believe that Christ will not and does not leave us 
comfortless ? A comforter must be one who understands 
our sorrow and our need, and who sympathises with 
our sufferings. A comforter must not criticise or judge 
harshly. He must be tender and considerate, and full of 
that charity that covers a multitude of faults. A comforter 
must put arms of love about us, and must whisper in our 
ears words of infinite kindness. A comforter is for 
dark times, not for bright times. If any one should call 
himself our comforter, and should then run away and 
hide himself when storms and trials came, we would 
consider that his name of comforter was merely an 
empty title, and all his promises of comfort would sound 
to us like idle tales. What is it that we think of Christ 
when we read that He has promised not to leave us 
comfortless, but to come and abide in our hearts as an 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


everpresent Comforter? Do we think of Him as a 
Comforter for Sundays only, or as One abiding with 
us through all the week as well? Surely an abiding 
Comforter must be always with us both on Sundays and 
week-days; and if we go uncomforted about anything, 
it can only be because we do not think He really is our 
Comforter, however often we may repeat His words 
about it. 

“And I will pra^ the Father, and He shall give you 
another Comforter, that He may abide \uth you for ever; 
even the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot receive, 
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye 
know Him ; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 
I will not leave you comfortless : I will come to you” 
(John xiv. 16-18). 

Again, take the name of Saviour. If Christ is called 
by any one name more than another it is Saviour. He 
is called over and over the Saviour of the world. No 
one can question that this is, without any controversy, 
His God-given name. Now, what is the common-sense 
view of a Saviour ? Manifestly, He is one who saves. 
He is not one who merely offers to save, but He must of 
necessity, from the very nature of the name, be one who 
actually does it. The only claim to the name lies in the 
fact behind the name. We might as rightly call a man 
a king who had only offered to reign, as to call a man a 
saviour who has only offered to save. When, then, we 
say Christ is our Saviour, what are we thinking of Him? 
Do we think of Him as One who is actually saving us 
now ? Or do we think of Him as One who only offers to 
save us at some future time, and who has accompanied 
that offer with such well-nigh impossible conditions that 



3 2 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


the salvation is practically not available for us at all ? 
Everything in our Christian life depends, not on what we 
say of Christ, but on what we think of Him when we 
call Him our Saviour. 

“And they that know thy name will put their trust in 
thee : for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek 
thee” (Ps. ix. io). 

“ For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have 
trusted in His holy name” (Ps. xxxiii. 21). 

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower : the righteous 
runneth into it, and is safe” (Prov. xviii. 10). 

The name of the Lord ” can only be a strong tower 
for us in proportion as we believe that name to express 
a fact. If I say with my lips that I believe Christ is the 
Saviour of the world, and at the same time question in 
my heart whether He saves me, my words are but mere 
idle tales, and I am really “profaning His holy name.” 
It is an absolute fact that they that “know His name ” 
will, without any doubt, put their trust in Him. No one 
could help trusting Him as their Saviour, who thought 
of Him as a real and genuine Saviour who saves. 

Had I time I might bring forward many more of the 
names by which our Lord is called, and press home the 
same question in connection with each one, “What 
think ye of Christ ? ” But enough has been said to show 
the vital necessity of there being a perfect agreement 
between our thoughts of Christ and the Bible words con¬ 
cerning Him. Only in this way can we come to know 
Him. Knowledge is impossible where our thoughts are 
opposed to the thing we are taught. 

“ M y P eo P le are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because 
thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that 





WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


33 


thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten 
the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children” (Hosea 
iv. 6). x 

“They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the 
time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he 
doeth God service. And these things will they do unto 
you, because they have not known the Father, nor me ” 
(John xvi. 2, 3). 

“ Because they have not known.” Ah, dear friends, 
how many ugly things we have done, and how many 
sad things we have suffered, because we have not known 
Christ! Again I repeat, therefore, that the one absolutely 
essential thing is to know the Lord. I do not mean 
know about Him, that avails but little; but to become 
acquainted with Him himself, to have a personal know¬ 
ledge of a personal Saviour, to know what sort of a being 
He is, to know Him as a man knows his nearest friend, 
to know Him so intimately as to make it impossible for 
doubts ever again to assail us. 

“ And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” 
(John xvii. 3). 

“ Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the 
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count 
them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in 
Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the 
law, but that which is through the faCith of Christ, the 
righteousness which is of God by faith : that I may know 
Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship 
of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death ” 
(Phil. iii. 8-10). 

I can well understand how Paul could say so confi¬ 
dently that he counted all things but loss for the excel- 

c 




34 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


lency of the knowledge of Christ. When once the soul 
has come to this knowledge, all fear and doubt, and even 
perplexity, are at an end, and perfect peace must of 
necessity reign undisturbed. 

“Who that one moment has the least descried Him, 

Faintly and dimly, hidden and afar, 

Doth not despise all excellence beside Him, 

Pleasures and powers that are not and that are ? 

Ay, amid all men, hold himself thereafter 
Smit with a solemn and a sweet surprise ; 

Dumb to their scorn, and turning on their laughter 
Only the dominance of earnest eyes.” 

No one can possibly have come to know Christ, as He 
really is, without entering into absolute rest for ever. It 
is like the rest and peace of the little child in the 
presence of its mother. The child knows instinctively 
that its mother will not let anything harm it; therefore 
it has no fears. And Christians, who know the Lord, 
know intelligently that He will not let harm come to 
them; and therefore they can have no fears either. 
Where there is a perfect care-taker there can be no cares ; 
where there is an invincible protector there can be no 
anxieties. What is needed then is for Christians to find 
out that they have just such a Care-taker and Protector in 
Christ; and this is why Paul could say, and we can all 
unite with him, that all things are to be counted as loss 
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 

But some may ask, “ How can I acquire this know¬ 
ledge? It seems all so vague and mystical to me that 
I do not know where to begin.” To all such I would 
reply, that there is nothing mystical about it. Begin by 
making yourself acquainted with Him in a common-sense 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


35 


way as you would with any historical character you 
wanted to know. Study His life. Ponder on His words 
and actions. Find out from the Bible what sort of a 
person He is, and teach yourself to think of Him as 
being just what the Bible reveals. And then, counting 
everything else as loss, accept Him in His fulness as 
your all-sufficient portion for every day and every hour 
of your lives. 

“ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house 
of Israel after those days, saith the Lord : I will put my 
laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts : and 
I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people : 
and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and 
every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all 
shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will 
be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their 
iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. viii. 10-12). 

It is an essential part of the new covenant that “all 
should know Him from the least to the greatest.” His 
part is to reveal Himself; our part is to believe His 
revelations. It is very simple. He tells us He is the 
Good Shepherd; we are to believe that He actually is, 
and are to accept Him as our Shepherd. He tells us 
He is the Saviour who saves now and here, and we are, 
to believe that it is really true, and are to accept His 
salvation. Of every revelation He has made of Himself 
in the Bible, we are to say, “ This is true; This is true.” 
We are simply to lay aside all our own preconceived 
ideas, and are to accept God’s ideas instead. We are to 
answer the question, “What think ye of Christ?” by 
replying, “I think of Him what the Bible tells me to 
think, and I think absolutely nothing else.” 



LESSON IV. 

YIELD , TRUST , 0J3£Y. 

In considering the subject of every-day religion there are 
three things always absolutely necessary in the attitude of 
the soul toward the Lord. Other things may be there 
or may not be there, but these three must. No peace, 
no victory, no communion are possible where these are 
absent; and no difficulty is insurmountable where they 
are present. I often feel like giving out, as a sort of 
universal common-sense recipe for the cure of all spiritual 
diseases and difficulties, the three simple words that form 
the subject of this lesson, Yield, Trust, Obey. 

r.—Y ield. 

“Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but 
yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into His sanctuary, 
which He hath sanctified fo'r ever: and serve the Lord 
your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away 
from you ” (2 Chron. xxx. 8). 

“Neither yield ye your members as instruments of un¬ 
righteousness unto sin : but yield yourselves unto God, as 
those that are alive from the dead, and your members as 
instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom. vi. 13). 

To yield anything means simply to make over that 
thing to the care and keeping of another. To yield 
ourselves to the Lord, therefore, is to make ourselves 

over to Him, giving Him the entire possession and 

36 


YIELD , TRUST , OBET. 


37 


control of our whole being. It means to abandon our¬ 
selves ; to take hands off of ourselves. The word con¬ 
secration is often used to express this yielding, but I 
hardly think it is a good substitute. With many people 
to consecrate themselves seems to convey the idea of 
doing something very self-sacrificing, and very good and 
grand; and it therefore admits of a subtle form of 
self-glorification. But “ yielding ” conveys a far more 
humbling idea; it implies helplessness and weakness, 
and the glorification of another rather than of ourselves. 

To illustrate the difference between the two ideas, let 
us notice the difference between consecrating one’s 
powers or one’s money to some great work, and the 
yielding of one’s self in illness to the care of a skilful 
physician. In the one case we confer a favour, in the 
other we receive a favour. In the one case, self can 
glory; in the other, self is abased. If I were lost in a 
wild and lonely forest, and a skilful guide should come 
to my rescue, I could not be said to consecrate myself to 
that guide, but I would be said to yield myself to his 
care and guidance. To consecrate is an Old Testament 
idea, and belongs to the old covenant of works; to yield 
is a New Testament idea, and belongs to the new cove¬ 
nant of grace. The word, to consecrate, is used forty 
times in the Old Testament, and only twice in the New, 
and both of these times it refers to Christ. (See Heb. 
vii. 28, and Heb. x. 20.) The New Testament idea of 
yielding or surrender is set forth as follows :— 

“ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” 
(Rom. xii. 1). 




38 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


We are to “ present ” ourselves, to hand ourselves over ; 
to do with ourselves what we do with the money we 
entrust to the bank, make ourselves over to the care and 
keeping and use of God. It is not the idea of sacrifice, 
in the sense we usually give to that word, namely, as of 
a great cross taken up ; but it is the sense of surrender, 
of abandonment, of giving up the control and keeping 
and use of ourselves unto the Lord. And this is our 
“reasonable service,” or, as I would express it, our 
common-sense service. It certainly is the most profound 
common-sense, if we are ill, to put our case into the hands 
of a skilful physician, or, if we are lost, to put our guid¬ 
ance into the hands of a safe guide; and to put our poor, 
weak, foolish, helpiess selves into the care and keeping 
of the God who made us, and who loves us, and who 
alone can care for us, is certainly the most profound 
common-sense of all. To yield to God means to belong 
to God, and to belong to God means to have all His 
infinite power and infinite love engaged on our side. A 
man is bound to take care of anything that belongs to 
him \ and so also, I would say it most reverently, is God. 
Therefore, when I invite you to yield yourselves to Him, 

I am inviting you to avail yourselves of an inexpressible 
and most amazing privilege. 

“ I speak after the manner of men because of the in¬ 
firmity of your flesh : for as ye have yielded your members 
servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity ; even 
so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto 
holiness” (Rom. vi. 19). 

“Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the 
God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent 
His angel, and delivered His servants that trusted in Him, 



YIELD , TRUST , OBEY. 


39 


and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, 
that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their 
own God” (Dan. iii. 28). 

God always delivers those who, like Shadrach, Meshach, 
and Abednego, regardless of circumstances or of seem* 
ings, yield themselves up into His keeping. Therefore, 
to yield is our first step. 

II. —Trust. 

“ Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in Him; 
and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth 
thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the 
noonday. . . . And the Lord shall help them, and deliver 
them : He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save 
them, because they trust in Him” (Ps. xxxvii. 5, 6, 40). 

“ Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose 
hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by 
the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, 
and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be 
green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, 
neither shall cease from yielding fruit” (Jer. xvii. 7, 8). 

I might multiply passages concerning trust indefinitely, 
for the Bible is simply full of them. The word believe 
is often used instead of the word trust, but the idea is 
the same. In the New Testament, especially, the word 
believe is the one generally used; but this does not mean 
believing in doctrines- or believing in history, but, rather, 
believing in a Person, or, in other words, trusting that 
Person. Christ always said, “Believe in me,” not, 
“ Believe this or that about me,” but “ Believe in me, in 
me as a Saviour who can save.” You cannot very well 
trust in “ doctrines ” or “ plans,” no matter how much 
you may believe in them, but you can always trust in the 



40 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


Lord, whether or not you understand His plans or the 
doctrines concerning Him. 

Trusting can hardly be said to be distinct from yield¬ 
ing. It is, in fact, the absolutely necessary correlation 
to it. It would be impossible for us really to yield our¬ 
selves up to the care of a physician or to the guidance 
of a guide, if we did not trust that physician or that guide; 
and on the other hand it would be equally impossible 
for us to trust where we did not yield. Trusting, there^ 
fore, simply means that when we have yielded ourselves 
up unto the Lord, or, in other words, have made our¬ 
selves over to Him, we then have perfect confidence 
that He will manage us and everything concerning us 
exactly right, and we consequently leave the whole care 
and managing in His hands. There is nothing but com¬ 
mon-sense in this. It is what we do a hundred times a 
day with our fellow-men. We are continually yielding 
ourselves or our affairs to the care and management of 
some one else, and feel the utmost unconcern in so 
doing. We never step into a railway carriage, or aboard 
a steamer, that we do not take the steps of yielding and 
trusting. And if we find it an easy and natural thing to do 
this toward man, how much more easy it must be to do 
it toward God. Trusting, therefore, is the second step. 

III.—Obey. 

(C Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves ser¬ 
vants to obey, His servants ye are to whom ye obey; 
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteous¬ 
ness” (Rom. vi. 16). 

“ But if thou shalt indeed obey His voice, and do all that 
I speak : then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and 
an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine Angel 



YIELD , TRUST , 0££y. 


4i 


shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, 
and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, 
the Hivites, and the Jebusites : and I will cut them off” 
(Exod. xxxiii. 22). 

Obedience is the logical outcome of yielding and 
trusting. If I yield myself up into the care of a phy¬ 
sician, and trust him to cure me, I must necessarily obey 
his orders. If I am lost in a wilderness, and surrender 
myself to the care of a guide, I must walk in the paths 
he points out. No physician, however skilful, can pos¬ 
sibly cure a patient who will not obey his orders; and 
no guide can lead a lost traveller home, if that traveller 
refuses to follow his guidance, and persists in walking 
in paths he forbids. Common-sense ought to teach us 
this. If we want the Lord to care for us, and protect 
us from our enemies, and provide for our needs, it 
stands to reason that we must obey His voice, and walk 
in the paths He marks out for us. 

u Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel 
had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued 
their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries. 
The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves 
unto Him ; but their time should have endured for ever. 
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat; 
and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied 
thee”(Ps. lxxxi. 13-16). 

Whatever difficulty we are in, therefore, we must take 
these three steps. First, we must yield it absolutely to 
the Lord; secondly, we must trust Him without anxiety 
to manage it; and thirdly, we must simply and quietly 
obey His will in regard to it. A parallel case would be, 
if one should put a difficult matter into the hands of a 
lawyer, and should be required by that lawyer to do 




42 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


certain things or to follow certain courses in order to 
insure the success of the case. Obviously the only 
common-sense course would be to follow the advice 
and comply with the suggestions so given, as completely 
and minutely as possible. To refuse to do so would be 
to make it impossible for the most skilful lawyer to 
carry the case to a successful issue. It is of no use, 
therefore, for us to think of yielding ourselves or any of 
our affairs to the Lord, and trusting Him to care for 
us and keep us, unless we make up our minds also 
to obey Him. 

“ But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my, 
voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people : 
and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, 
that it may be well unto you” (Jer. vii. 23). 

“ Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a 
curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the 
Lord your God, which I command you this day ; and a 
curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord 
your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command 
you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not 
known” (Deut. xi. 26-28; see also Deut. xxviii. 1-14 ; 
Jer. xxxviii. 19, 20). 

Obedience, therefore, may be said to be simply a 
matter of self-interest. It is not a demand made of us, 
but a privilege offered. Like yielding and trusting, it 
is simply a way of bringing Divine wisdom and power 
to bear upon our affairs. And if we could only learn 
to look upon it in this common-sense kind of way, we 
should find that it had lost half of its terrors. We 
should be able to say then with our Divine Master, 
“ I delight to do Thy will,” and not merely I consent 
to do it. 



YIELD , TRUST , 0££T. 


43 


A great many people consent to obey God because 
they are afraid of the consequences of disobedience, but 
they find no “delight” in it. If, however, they would 
only look for a little while on the other side, and see 
something of the unspeakably blessed consequences of 
obedience, they would find themselves delighting in 
obedience, and even embracing it eagerly, and rejoicing 
in the privilege of it. 

“ Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed and 
keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto 
me above all people : for all the earth is mine; and ye 
shall be unto me a kingdom of priests ; and an holy nation ” 
(Ex. xix. 5, 6). 

To be “ Go i’s peculiar treasure ” is surely something 
to make us delight in obeying His will! 

We have now considered the three elements of the 
little practical, common-sense cure-all, which is the sub¬ 
ject of our lesson—Yield, Trust, Obey. It remains for 
us to learn how to apply the remedy to the disease. All 
physicians will tell us that a remedy, to be effectual, 
must be actually and faithfully taken as long as the need 
continues. In order, therefore, to make this cure-all 
effectual, we must actually and faithfully take it. That 

is, we must actually and definitely yield ourselves and all 
our interests, week-day interests as well as Sunday ones, 
to God in a continual surrender. We must take our 
hands off of ourselves, and off of our affairs of every kind, 
and then we must leave them all in perfect trust to the 
Lord to manage; and finally we must simply, day by 
day, and hour by hour, obey His will as far as we know 

it. This is to be done about everything, literally every¬ 
thing. We are to keep nothing back. But who could 



44 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


want to keep anything in his own care, when he has the 
privilege of putting it into God’s care ? 

<{ Be careful for nothing ; but in everything by prayer and 
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
known unto God. . And the peace of God, which passeth 
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through 
Christ Jesus” (Phil. iv. 6, 7). 

This is an infallible recipe. No human being ever 
acted on it, that peace did not come. No matter how 
great the trial, no matter how dark the perplexity, no 
matter even how grievous the sin, if that trial or that 
perplexity, or that sin, is only yielded up fully to the Lord’s 
management, and He is perfectly trusted to manage it 
aright, and if the one thus yielding it, quietly and simply 
obeys God’s will in regard to it, as fast as He makes it 
known, then, just as sure as God is God, will peace and 
victory come. I except nothing, literally nothing. The 
Apostle says, “ Be careful (/.&, anxious) for nothing.” 
This covers the whole ground : sins, sorrows, perplexities, 
anxieties, friends, children, property, health, business, 
Christian work, social life, household cares, plans in 
life, the past, the future, heights, depths, and “ any other 
creature,” all are included, and all must be committed 
to the care of God. And then, about all, when they are 
thus committed, the peace of God that passes all under¬ 
standing will most assuredly come. 

Try it, dear readers. About the next thing that 
troubles you take the three steps I have pointed out. 
Yield it entirely to the Lord, trust Him about it perfectly, 
and obey Him implicitly; and persist in this unwaveringly; 
and then see if, sooner or later, peace and deliverance 
do not surely come. I have never known it to fail. 



YIELD , TRUST , 0BE7. 


45 


The deliverance may not always come in your own way, 
but it will surely come in God’s way; and God’s way is 
always the best way, and is the way we ourselves would 
choose, if we knew all that He knows. 

“ Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain 
thee : He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved ” 
(Ps. lv. 22). 

“ Casting all your care upon Him ; for He careth for 
you” (1 Pet. v. 7). 

Write out the receipt for this universal panacea, and 
keep it in your pocket-book, and in every moment of 
need make an application of it. It contains but three 
words :— 


YIELD, 


TRUST, 


OBEY. 



LESSON V. 

ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVANTS. 

Foundation Text :—“ For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in 
heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations : thou hast estab¬ 
lished the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according 
to thine ordinances : for all are thy servants.”-—Ps. cxix. 89-91. 

“All things are thy servants.” Not a few things only, 
but all things. Not things on Sundays only, but things 
on week-days as well. We generally think that only 
the good people or the good things of life can serve God; 
but here the Psalmist tells us that all things, whether 
good or bad, are His servants. That is, all things, no 
matter what their origin may be, are used by the Lord 
to accomplish His purposes, and all are made to work 
together for His ends. 

“ And we know that all things work together for good to 
them that love God, to them who are the called according 
to His purpose” (Rom. viii. 28). 

Both the Psalmist and the Apostle spoke out of the 
midst of some of the darkest problems and mysteries of 
life, when they made these declarations. The Psalmist 
had just been telling how he had been “almost con¬ 
sumed ” by the proud, who had “ digged pits ” for him, 
and had “persecuted him wrongfully;” and yet in the 
very face of things, which must have seemed to him so 
mysterious, he could still declare that God’s “faithful- 

46 


ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVANTS. 


47 


ness was unto all generations,” and that “all things 
were His servants.” 

The Apostle also, out of a deep sense of the “ groan¬ 
ing and travailing ” of himself and of all creation, under 
the “ bondage of corruption,” could declare unhesitatingly 
his faith, that, notwithstanding these grave mysteries, he 
still was sure that “ all things work together for good to 
them that love God, to them who are the called accord¬ 
ing to His purpose.” 

In both instances it was their profound faith in the 
God who created and controls the world, that enabled 
them to see through the blinding mystery, this magnifi¬ 
cent fact, that all things are His servants, and that all 
things must therefore minister to the welfare of His 
children. 

“Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all 
deeps: fire and hail; snow and vapour; stormy wind 
fulfilling His word” (Ps. cxlviii. 7, 8). 

Even fire and hail, snow and vapour, dragons and all 
deeps “fulfil His word,” and serve Him. And not only 
is this trup of the fierce and cruel things in nature, but 
of the wicked things in man as well. 

“ Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the re¬ 
mainder of wrath shalt thou restrain” (Ps. lxxvi. 10). 

The “ wrath of man.” is altogether a wrong thing, and 
yet even this becomes God’s servant, and is forced to 
accomplish His purposes, and bring Him praise. 

“Thou art my battle-axe and weapons of war : for with 
thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I 
destroy kingdoms; and with thee will I break in pieces the 
horse and his rider ; and with thee will I break in pieces 
the chariot and his rider; with thee also will I break in 



48 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in 
pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces 
the young man and the maid; I will also break in pieces 
with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will 
I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen ; 
and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers ” 
(Jer. li. 20-23). 

The common-sense of this is simply, that while the 
Lord does not inaugurate evil in order to accomplish 
His will, He adopts it to “ fulfil His word; ” using a 
heathen king as His “battle-axe” and His “weapons of 
war” to accomplish His purposes of discipline and 
chastening towards His people. 

There are many striking instances of this in the Bible. 
The story of Joseph is one of these. His brethren, in 
their wrath and envy, sold him into Egypt. Nothing 
could have seemed on the face of it to be more plainly 
the result of sin, nor more utterly contrary to the will of 
God than this; and yet at the end, how clearly we are 
shown that these wicked brethren, while acting out their 
own wickedness, were really used by God as His ser¬ 
vants to bring about a “ great deliverance ” and to “ save 
much people alive.” (See Gen. xlv. 4-8 ; 1 . 19, 20.) 

“ Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto 
good.” This is the secret of all those trials which come 
to us from the wrath or malice of men. They think 
evil against us, perhaps, but God means it for good; 
and we can therefore say with Joseph, of each one, “It 
was not you ” who did it, “ but God.” Knowing this, 
it is not strange that the Apostle should assert so trium¬ 
phantly his deliverance from all fear of what man can 
do unto him. 



ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVANTS. 


49 


“ Be content with such things as ye have; for He hath 
said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we 
may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear 
what man shall do unto me ” (Heb. xiii. 5, 6). 

The death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was 
another illustration of this truth. It certainly was “ by 
wicked hands ” that He was crucified and slain; and yet 
these “wicked hands” only accomplished, all uncon¬ 
sciously to themselves, God’s “ determinate counsel ” for 
the salvation of the world. 

“ Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and 
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
have crucified and slain ” (Acts ii. 23). 

“ Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down 
my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from 
me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it 
down, and I have power to take it again. This command¬ 
ment have I received of my Father” (John x. 17, 18). 

The multitude who cried, “ Crucify Him, crucify 
Him,” thought it was they themselves who were taking 
His life; but He knew that He laid it down of Himself; 
and that God was merely using their “ wicked hands ” 
as His servants, to accomplish His purposes of love and 
mercy to mankind. The Jews “thought evil” against 
Him, but “ God meant it unto good.” 

And so I believe it always is. All things are used by 
God as His servants, let the agencies that started them 
be what they may. He does not inaugurate the evil, 
but when that evil is directed against His children, He 
makes it His “ servant ” to carry them a blessing. 

That this must necessarily be the case, we can easily 
see from considering a moment, in the light of common- 
sense, the nature of God’s relationship to us. He is our 

D 





EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


Father. His care of us is more watchful and more tender 
than the care of any human father could possibly be. 
All things are in His hands, and He controls each one. 

“ Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him : all nations 
shall serve Him” (Ps. lxxii. 11). 

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the 
rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will ” 
(Prov. xxi. i). 

“ I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God 
beside me : I girded thee, though thou hast not known me : 
that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from 
the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, 
and there is none else. I form the light, and create dark¬ 
ness : I make peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all 
these things” (Isa. xlv. 5-7; see also Isa. xliv. 24-28; 
Isa. xlv. 12, 13). 

From these Scriptures, and many more, had we time 
to quote them, it is perfectly plain that all things, 
whether kings, or nations, or light, or darkness, or peace, 
or evil, or the earth, or the hosts of heaven, or liars, or 
diviners, or cities, or rivers, or heathen generals, all are 
under His control, and all must accomplish His will. 
And this God is our Father. Repeat the words over 
and over again; this God, whom all things must serve, 
whether they know Him or not, is our Father. Can we 
conceive of a good father or mother allowing their 
servants to injure their children? Do we know of any 
good parents who do not make their servants serve their 
children? We answer emphatically, No. Then, can 
we conceive that God, the ideal Father and mother in 
one, could do what human fathers and mothers would 
find impossible? No, a thousand times, No! Then 
our Heavenly Father’s servants must as surely serve us, 




ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVANTS. 


5i 


as the servants of our earthly fathers do. And, since 
all things are God’s servants, all things are therefore 
our servants as well. 

“ Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are 
yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, 
or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all 
are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” 
(1 Cor. iii. 21-23). 

“ All things are yours,” not to trouble you and do you 
harm, but to bless you and do you good. We feel on 
the earthly plane of things, that it is enough to say of 
any one that they belong to the family of a rich and 
generous man, in order to be sure that all things under 
this man’s control are made to minister to their welfare; 
and how much more must this.be the case with us who 
belong to God. Everything that is His servant must 
necessarily be our servant as well. 

“And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of 
the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the 
people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is 
an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and 
obey Him” (Dan. vii. 13, 14, 27). 

How few, alas ! of the children of God have waked up 
to know their true position as sharing in this universal 
“ kingdom and dominion ” of the Son of man ! It is our 
birthright to find all things made our servants, but instead 
we allow most things to become our masters. A trial 
comes, or a disappointment, and instead of recognising 
it as God’s servant, sent to bring us some blessing from 
His hand, we bow down to it as our tyrannical master, 
and let it crush us into darkness and despair. 




52 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


How then should God’s servants be received ? 

“ And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by His 
messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because He 
had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling-place : 
but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His 
words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the 
Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy ” 
(2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16). 

Since all things are God’s servants, all things must 
necessarily be His messengers, and therefore every event 
and dispensation of life has its message for us, let the 
aspect of the “ messenger ” be what it may. Many of 
our choicest gifts from our dearest friends come to us 
by the hands of very rough-looking messengers, and are 
wrapped up in coarse brown packages. Do we, because 
of this, “despise and misuse” the messengers, and refuse 
to receive and open the packages ? My neighbour who 
treats me unkindly, or my friend who wrongs me, or my 
enemy who maligns me, have each one as really a message 
from God for me, as the clergyman who preaches to me, 
or the Christian friend who gives me a tract. And as I 
would not “ despise or misuse ” the one, neither must I 
the other. We little know, dear friends, of the rich 
blessings we lose, because we thus despise and misuse 
the “servants” who bring them. Perhaps the gift of 
patience, for which you have prayed long and apparently 
in vain, is held in the hand of that very disagreeable 
inmate of your household, whose presence has seemed 
to you such an unkind infliction. Or it may be that the 
victory over the world, for which your soul has fervently 
hungered, was shut up in that very disappointment or 
loss, against which you have rebelled with such bitter- 



ALL THINGS ARB THY SERVANTS. 


53 


ness, that it has brought your soul into grievous darkness 
instead. 

“ And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his 
servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the 
fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and 
beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, 
he sent other servants more than the first; and they did 
unto them likewise” (Matt s xxi. 34-36). 

Often, after times of especial blessing, or after a long 
course of spiritual culture, the Master of our vineyards 
sends His “ servants ” to receive for Him the “ fruits of 
it.” He has been trying to teach us gentleness and 
meekness, and when the “time of the fruit” draws near, 
He sends a “ servant ” in the shape of a grievous provo¬ 
cation or a cruel misunderstanding, in order that through 
our reception of these, He may receive the fruits He has 
sought to cultivate. But how often, alas ! we beat one, 
and stone another, and fail to recognise or receive them 
as the “ servants ” who have come to gather the fruits for 
our Master, whom yet all the time we are professing to 
be so eager to serve. 

In the story of Job we have a very striking illustration 
of the truth we are considering. All sorts of misfortunes 
came upon him, originated by all sorts of agencies. His 
oxen and his asses were stolen by the Sabeans, his sheep 
and his servants were burned up by lightning, his camels 
Were carried away by the Chaldeans, his sons and his 
daughters were crushed by the falling in of the house 
where they were feasting, and finally Job himself was 
smitten with sore boils from the crown of his head to 
the sole of his foot. There were very different instru¬ 
mentalities employed in bringing these misfortunes to 



54 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


pass, and yet all of them—Satan, the Sabeans, the light¬ 
ning, the Chaldeans, the great wind from the wilderness, 
and the sore boils that covered Job’s body—all were God’s 
‘‘servants” to accomplish His blessed purpose of maturing 
the “ fruits ” of meekness, and patience, and submission, 
and trust, in the heart of Job, and of bringing him into 
greater nearness and communion with Himself at last. 
And Job evidently received them as God’s “servants,” 
for he took no notice in any case of the “ second causes,” 
but referred his trials right back to God. “ The Lord 
gave,” he said, “ and the Lord hath taken away; blessed 
be the name of the Lord.” And when his wife tempted 
him to rebel, he called her, as she was in truth, “ a foolish 
woman,” and gave her this triumphant answer, “ What! 
shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we 
not receive evil ? ” 

There are no “second causes” to the children of God. 
There cannot be, because all the so-called “second causes” 
are God’s “ servants,” and He could never allow any of 
them to interfere with His purposes, or frustrate His 
will. Nothing can touch us without His permission; 
and, when that permission is granted, it can only be 
because He, in His love and wisdom, sees that the event 
He permits contains for us some blessing or some medi¬ 
cine that our souls need; while, if He withholds that 
permission, then men and devils may rage in vain. 

“Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, 
and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Ps. 
cxxxv. 6). 

If God “pleases” to let my trial come, He has in that 
act adopted my trial as His servant. 



ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVANTS. 


55 


One of the greatest difficulties in the Christian life 
arises from the failure to see this fact. The child of God 
says, “It would be easy to say ‘Thy will be done’ to 
my trials, if I could only see that they come from God. 
But my trials and crosses come almost always from some 
human hand, and I cannot say ‘ Thy will be done ’ to 
human beings.” This is all true; but what if we should 
see, in every human instrumentality, only one of God’s 
“ servants,” coming to us with hands full of messages and 
blessings from Him ? Could we not then receive them 
with submission, and even with thankfulness ? The trial 
itself may be very hard for flesh and blood to bear, and 
I do not mean that we can be thankful for that, but the 
blessing it brings is surely always cause for the deepest 
thankfulness. I may not be able to give thanks for an 
unkind friend, but I can give thanks for the patience and 
meekness brought to me through the instrumentality of 
this friend’s unkindness. 

“ Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the 
Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. v. 20). 

“ In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God 
in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess. v. 18). 

No one can possibly obey this command to give thanks 
in everything, who fails to see that “ all things are God’s 
servants.” But to those who do see this, every event of 
life, even the most disagreeable, is only a bearer of bless¬ 
ing; and as a consequence, all the days of such are filled 
with continual thanksgiving. 

Perhaps some may ask why it is, if all things are indeed 
God’s servants, sent to bring us some message or some 
gift, that they themselves never seem to get these gifts or 
messages. The answer is simply this, that because these 



56 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


gifts and messages have come to them wrapped in coarse 
and ugly packages, and by the hands of rough-looking 
messengers, they have refused to receive and open them. 
Their ears have been so filled with their own complain¬ 
ings, that they could not hear God’s message, and their 
eyes have been so absorbed in looking at the seen suffering 
and hardness, as to fail to look for the unseen blessing. 

It is the truest common-sense, therefore, to welcome 
every event of life as God’s servant, bringing us some¬ 
thing from Him ; and to overlook the disagreeableness of 
the messenger in the joy of the message, and forget the 
hurt of the trial in the sweetness of the blessing it brings. 

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through 
the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a 
thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest 
I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I 
besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 
And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for 
my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly 
therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the 
power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take 
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in per¬ 
secutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake : for when I am 
weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. xii. 7-10). 

Paul had learned this lesson, and came at last even to 
“take pleasure” in the “messenger of Satan” that was 
sent “to buffet him.” Nothing could possibly have a 
worse origin than a “messenger of Satan,” and nothing 
certainly would seem at first sight to be more unlikely to 
be one of God’s servants; and yet Paul evidently recog¬ 
nised it as such, and was thankful for it, because he found 
that, shut up in this very “thorn in the flesh” was the 
blessed revelation to his soul of the power of Christ resting 



ALL THINGS ARE THY SERVANTS. 


57 


upon him. For the sake of a similar revelation, who 
would not welcome a similar thorn ! 

Receive the next thing that hurts thee then, dear reader, 
as a “ servant ” sent from God to bear thee a blessing; and 
busy thyself, not so much with trying to escape thy sorrow, 
as with trying to find out the message it brings thee. It 
may be the sin of man that has originated the sorrow, 
and of course this sinful action itself cannot be said to be 
the will of God; but by the time it reaches thee it has 
become “ God’s servant ” for thee, and holds some gift 
of love and of blessing. No man or company of men, 
no angels or devils, no principalities or powers in heaven 
or on earth, can touch the soul that belongs to God, with¬ 
out first passing through His inspection and receiving the 
seal of His permission. 

For all things are His servants, and His kingdom 
ruleth over all! 

“ ‘ Things do go wrong ; I know grief, pain and fear j 
I see them lord it sore and wide around.’ 

From her fair twilight answers Truth, star-crowned, 

‘ Things wrong are needful where wrong things abound ; 
Things go not wrong; but Pain, with dog and spear, 

False faith from human hearts will hunt and hound.’ ” 

—George Macdonald. 



LESSON VI. 

“ ME / ” 

Foundation Text :—“ I communed with mine own heart, say¬ 
ing, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom 
than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem : yea, my heart 
hath great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”— Eccl. i. 16. 

There is no subject more vital to an every-day religion 
than a clear understanding of the right relations of our 
own individuality to the rest of the world. To most 
people the greatest person in the universe is themselves. 
Their whole lives are made up of endless variations on 
the word “me.” What do people think of me? How 
will things affect me? Will this make me happy? Do 
people value me as they ought ? Look at my great estate. 
Behold my remarkable experiences. Listen to my wis¬ 
dom. Adopt my views. Follow my methods. And so 
on, and so on, through all the varied range of daily life. 
Always and everywhere this giant me intrudes itself, 
demanding attention, and insisting on its rights. 

Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, we “commune with our 
own hearts ” concerning our great possessions of various 
kinds, our wisdom, our knowledge, our righteousness, our 
good works; and are profoundly impressed with their 
great value and importance ; and naturally we desire to 
call the attention of those around us to their magnitude ! 

The whole book of Ecclesiastes is founded on this 


“ME/” 


59 


devotion to the word me. In the second chapter, for 
example, we find the words, I, me, my, mine used forty 
times in seven verses (see Eccl. ii. 3-11). 

The “ Preacher,” as he calls himself, is trying to solve 
the problem of earthly happiness. “ I sought in my 
heart,” he says, “till I might see what was that good for 
the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven 
all the days of their life.” And he first of all secures 
for himself everything that he thinks can in any way 
conduce to the welfare and happiness of me ; and sums 
it all up in the seven verses I have mentioned. But at 
the end, in reviewing it all, he is forced to declare that, 
“ behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there 
was no profit under the sun.” 

A little exercise of common-sense would show us that 
this must be the inevitable result of everything that has 
me and me only for its centre. There is never any 
“profit” in it, but always a grievous loss, and it can 
never turn out to be anything but “vanity and vexa* 
tion of spirit.” Have we not all discovered something 
of this in our own experience? You have set your 
heart, perhaps, on procuring something for the benefit 
or pleasure of your own great big me; but when you 
have secured it, this ungrateful me has refused to be 
satisfied, and has turned away from what it has cost you 
so much to procure, in weariness and disgust. Or you 
have laboured to have the claims of this me recognised 
by those around you, and have reared with great pains 
and effort a high pinnacle, upon which you have seated 
youself to be admired by all beholders. And lo! at 
the critical moment, the pinnacle has tottered over, and 
your glorious me has fallen into the dust; and contempt, 



6o 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


instead of honour, has become its portion. Never, 
under any circumstances, has it really in the end paid 
you to try and exalt your great exacting me, for always, 
sooner or later, it has all proved to be “nothing but 
vanity and vexation of spirit.” 

Job, as well as Solomon, discovered this. In the 
29th chapter of Job, for instance, we have a passage 
similar to the one in Ecclesiastes. Here the me of Job 
is exalted even above the me of Solomon. The words 
I,, me, my, mine, are used over fifty times, and nothing 
seems wanting that could conduce to the honour and 
glory of me. And yet, in spite of all his self-glorification, 
Job found at last that those who were younger than 
himself, and whose fathers he would have disdained to 
have “set among his dogs,” simply “had him in derision.” 
It is always so. Efforts after self-glorification and self¬ 
exaltation, always end in bringing the me so glorified 
into derision. The on-lookers may not say anything, 
perhaps, and may even seem to acquiesce in the praises 
self bestows upon its me ; but inwardly they laugh it all 
to scorn. Have not we ourselves seen people labouring 
to exalt their me in the eyes of their friends, by recount¬ 
ing, as Job did, their own successes, and dwelling upon 
their own gifts and capabilities; and have we not always 
laughed at them in our secret hearts and been sorry that 
they could not see themselves as others saw them ? May 
it not be even that we have done something of the 
same sort ourselves, and that there are many unwritten 
chapters in our own secret autobiographies that are quite 
as full of the variations on the personal pronouns I, me, 
mv, as this chapter in the book of Job ? Have we ever 
found, however, that such self-praise was any recom- 




ME/ n 


61 


mendation, or that our self-exaltation exalted us in the 
eyes of any one besides ourselves ? 

In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican our 
Lord gives us a picture of the Divine judgment in regard 
to this exalting of our me ; and declares emphatically, 
“ I tell you . . . every one that exalteth himself shall be 
abased : and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” 
(See Luke xviii. 9-14.) 

Almost the worst effect of self-praise is that our fancied 
good grows and swells as we look at it and talk about it; 
and hence a man, whose eyes and whose thoughts are 
centered on self, comes to have for • the most part a 
strangely exaggerated notion of the goodness and worthi¬ 
ness of his me. It is like a sort of spiritual dropsy that 
swells the soul up to twice its natural size, and which 
looks, perhaps, on the surface as an increase of health 
and strength, but is in reality only a symptom of a sore 
disease. Such a one is suffering from what the French 
call, La maladie du vioi; and it is one of the most fatal 
maladies there is. 

“ But all their works they do for to be seen of men * they 
make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of 
their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and 
the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the 
markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be 
not ye called Rabbi : for one is your Master, even Christ; 
and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father 
upon the earth : for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, 
even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be 
your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be 
abased: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” 
(Matt, xxiii. 5—12). 



62 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


It is an inevitable law that he that exalts himself shall 
be abased. Not always abased outwardly, so that the 
man himself knows it, but inevitably abased secretly, in 
the estimation of those around, who are always unfavour¬ 
ably impressed in exact proportion to the efforts self 
makes to create a favourable impression. How often 
have we seen pitiful illustrations of this, when Christian 
workers are together, and each one is vieing with the 
others in trying to edge in some account of the work “/ 
have done,” or the sermons “ I have preached,” or the 
meetings “ I have held,” or the honours that have been 
showered upon me ; and each one thinking all the others 
so tiresome and so grievously full of self! 

“ And He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, 
when He marked how they chose out the chief rooms; 
saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a 
wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more 
honourable man than thou be bidden of him ; and he that 
bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man 
place ; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. 
But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest 
room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say 
unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have 
worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. 
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he 
that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke xiv. 7—11). 

Me is a most exacting personage, requiring the best 
seats and the highest places for itself, and feeling 
grievously wounded if its claims are not recognised and 
its rights considered. Most of the quarrels among 
Christian workers arise from the clamourings of this 
gigantic me. “So and so is exalted above me;” “My 
rights have been trampled upon;” “No one considers 



“ME/» 


63 

me.” How much there is of this sort of thing, expressed 
or unexpressed, in every heart where me is king! How 
few of us understand the true glory of taking our seats 
in the lowest rooms! And yet, if we are to have real 
“ honour in the presence of them that sit at meat ” with 
us, this is what we must do. 

“ Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory: but 
in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than them¬ 
selves. Look not every man on his own things, but every 
man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you 
which was also in Christ Jesus : who, being in the form of 
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but 
made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the 
form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 
and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, 
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted Him, 
and given Him a name which is above every name” (Phil. 

3 - 9 ). 

“ Lowliness of mind ” is the only true road to honour. 
He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; and no one 
else. Our Divine Master has set us the example of this ; 
and if we really want to have the “mind that was in 
Christ Jesus,” we must be willing to be made of no 
reputation, and must take, not the place of mastery, but 
the place of service. 

“But Jesus called them to Him, and saith unto them, 
Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the 
Gentiles exercise lordship over them ; and their great ones 
exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among 
you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your 
minister: and whosoever of you will be the chie f est, shall 
be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to 




6 4 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION\ 


be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a 
ransom for many” (Mark x. 42-45). 

To be the “servant of all ” is not a gratifying position 
to me. Much more suitable does it seem to this mighty 
me that others should serve it, and that it should “ exercise 
lordship and authority” over them. It is only therefore 
when this tyrannical me is cast out of our inner kingdom, 
that we can understand the blessedness and glory of 
being the “ servant of all,” or can realise the greatness 
that comes by this road. 

“ Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. 
Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed 
with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth 
grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under 
the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due 
time” (1 Pet. v. 5, 6). 

It seems very hard for Christians to take on this spirit 
of subjection one to another. The me in them rebels 
mightily at any suggestion of such a thing. And yet in 
the kingdom of heaven it is the only road to greatness. 

Our Lord tells us we do well to beware of people 
who “love salutations in the market-places, and the 
chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms 
at feasts; ” and our own instincts tell us the same. Only 
lately, in discussing the appointment of different Chris¬ 
tians to the presidency of an influential society, there 
was one name mentioned at which every one in the 
committee exclaimed, almost in a breath, “Oh, we 
cannot have her, she is far too full of self!” 

* A man’s pride shall bring him low : but honour shall 
uphold the humble in spirit” (Prov. xxix. 23). 



souls ” (Matt. xi. 29). 

To be ‘‘meek and lowly in heart” one must get rid 
of the me Some people think they are humble and 
lowly in heart when they say bitter and disparaging 
things about themselves, but I am convinced that the 
giant me is often quite as much exalted and puffed up 
by self-blame as by self-praise. The simple truth is, that 
we ought not to think or talk about our me at all. Self 
is so greedy of notice, that, if it cannot be praised, it 
would rather be blamed, than not noticed at alL It is 
content to say all manner of ugly things about itself, if 
only it can by this means attract attention to itself. If 
it feels a delicacy about saying, “lam so good,” it finds 
almost as much delight in saying, “ I am so bad.” This 
seems strange, but I believe the reason is that self feels 
as if the very saying, “I am so bad,” proves that it is 
not so very bad after all, since it can be so humble ! It 
is, however, a very different thing to say disparaging 
things about ourselves from having any one else say 
them about us. If we are in the habit of making these 
self-disparagmg remarks, let us think for a moment how 
we should feel if our friends were to agree with our 
remarks, and were to repeat them to others as their 
own opinions. Suppose the next time you should say 
of yourself, “Oh, I am such a poor good-for-nothing 
creature,” some one of your friends should reply, “ Yes, 
that is exactly what I have always thought about you ” 
How would your me like that ? The truth is our me 
always expects the disparaging remarks it makes about 
itself to be denied; and it often, I fear, even if uncon- 



66 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


sciously, makes them for the express purpose of having 
them denied, and of having its humility, in making such 
humble statements concerning itself, admired and ap¬ 
plauded. What can be more delicious to a delicate self- 
love than to hear itself applauded for having none ! The 
truly meek and lowly heart does not want to talk about its 
me at all, either for good or evil. It wants to forget its 
very existence. As Fenelon writes, it says to this me, 
“ I do not know you, and am not interested in you. You 
are a stranger to me, and I do not care what happens to 
you nor how you are treated.” If people slight you or 
treat you with contumely or neglect, the meek and lowly 
heart accepts all as its rightful portion. True humility 
makes us love to be treated, both by God and man, as 
we feel our imperfections really deserve; and, instead 
of resenting such treatment, we welcome it and are 
thankful for it. I remember being greatly struck by a 
saying of Madame Guyon’s, that she had learned to give 
thanks for every mortification that befel her, because 
she had found mortifications so helpful in putting self 
to death. It is undoubtedly true, as another old saint 
says, that there is no way of attaining the grace of 
humility but by the way of humiliations. Humiliations 
are the medicine that the Great Physician generally 
administers to cure the spiritual dropsy caused by feed¬ 
ing the soul on continual thoughts of me. 

“ And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord 
thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to 
humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine 
heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or 
no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, 
and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither 




“ME/” 


67 


did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that 
man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that pro¬ 
ceeded out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live ” 
(Deut. viii. 2, 3). 

Many of us may be at this moment taking the same 
sort of medicine that the Lord was obliged to give to the 
children of Israel. We need, perhaps, to be “humbled,” 
as much as they did, that we may not be tempted to say 
in our hearts, “ My power and the might of mine hand 
hath gotten me this wealth; ” and the Lord is therefore 
obliged to “suffer us to hunger,” and to “lead us through 
great and terrible wildernesses” to “prove us, and do us 
good. Should this be the experience of any of us, we 
must look at the blessed cure to be wrought, and take 
our medicine, no matter how bitter may be its taste, with 
cheerful and thankful hearts. 

The Apostle Paul understood the true common-sense 
of humility. He tells us in Philippians the causes he 
had for self-glorification, but declares that he “counted 
all these things but dung,” so worthless had he discovered 
them to be. He bids good-bye to his own gigantic me, 
and cries out in language I would we could all adopt, “ I 
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me ” (Gal. ii. 20). 

This “yet not I ” is one of those “swords of the 
Spirit ” about which Paul speaks when he describes the 
Christian’s armour, and I know none that is more effectual 
in our conflict with the unruly giant me. Not even a 
giant can resist the disintegrating process of an absolute 
and persistent ignoring of his existence; and if we will 
but adopt Paul’s language, we cannot fail sooner or later 
to gain Paul’s glorious victories. 


\ 



LESSON VII. 

THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


Foundation Text :—“ For to their power, I bear record, yea, and, 
beyond their power, they were willing of themselves. . . . For if 
there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man 
hath, and not according to that he hath not.”—2 Cor. viii. 3, 12. 

Fenelon, in a book called “Spiritual Progress,” gives 
us a deep insight into the place of the will in religion. 
He says, “True virtue and pure love reside in the will 
alone.” And again, “ The will to love God is the whole 
of religion.” This, it seems to me, is the meaning of our 
foundation text, “ If there be a willing mind ” it is ac¬ 
cepted of God. 

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto 
the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of 
every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall 
take my offering ” (Exod. xxv. 1, 2). 

In a religion that is to fit into every-day life there must 
be no dependence upon anything emotional or mysterious. 
A “ state of mind ” that will carry one safely through a 
Sunday service will be of no avail against the assaults of 
Monday’s work. In common ordinary life everything 
depends on the will, which is, as we all know, the 
governing power in a man’s nature. By the will, I do 
not mean the wish of the man, nor his feelings, nor his 

longings, but his choice, his deciding power, the king 

68 


THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


69 


within him to which all the rest of his nature must yield 
obedience. I mean, in short, the man himself, the “Ego,” 
—that personality in the depths of his being which he 
feels to be his real self. A great deal of trouble arises 
from the fact that so few seem to understand this secret 
of the will. The common thought is that religion resides, 
not in the will, but in the emotions, and the emotions 
are looked upon as the governing power in our nature; 
and consequently all the attention of the soul is directed 
towards our “feelings;” and, as these are satisfactory 
or otherwise, the soul rests or is troubled. But the 
moment we discover the fact that true religion resides 
in the will alone, we are raised above the domination of 
our feelings, and realise that, so long as our will is stead¬ 
fast towards God, the varying states of our emotions do 
not in the least affect the reality of the divine life in 
the soul. It is a great emancipation to make this dis¬ 
covery ; and a little common-sense applied to religion 
would soon, I think, reveal it to us all. For we must 
all know that there is something within us, behind our 
feelings and behind our wishes, an independent self, that 
after all decides everything and controls everything. The 
Bible calls this central self the “ heart,” and declares that 
out of it are the “issues of life.” 

“ Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the 
issues of life ” (Prov. iv. 23). 

“A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, 
bringeth forth that which is good ; and an evil man, out of 
the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is 
evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh ” 
(Matt. xii. 35). 

By whatever name philosophers may call this “ heart ” 



70 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION . 


out of which are the “issues of life,” common-sense 
would teach us that it means nothing more nor less than 
the will; for certainly to my consciousness the will is 
the governing force in my nature, and the spring of all 
my actions. It is out of the secret springs of our will 
that we bring forth the good or evil treasures of our lives. 
No one who will take a Concordance, and run their eyes 
down the long list of passages concerning the “heart,” 
can fail to see that when God speaks of the “heart,” He 
means something far other than that bundle of emotions 
which we of the present day call our hearts. And even 
we also often use the word heart in a far deeper sense. 
We speak, for instance, of getting “at the heart” of a 
matter, and we mean, not the feelings that accompany 
it, but the central idea that dominates it. And in the 
same way when God speaks of our “ hearts,” He means 
our true central self, that “ Ego ” within us which domi¬ 
nates our whole being. The word is used in the Bible 
over one thousand times, and it is made to express every 
form of thought or action that could be predicated of 
this central “ Ego.” The “ heart ” is said to understand 
and to be ignorant, to be wise and to be silly, to exercise 
good judgment or bad, to be stupefied, to wax gross, to 
grow fat, to resist the light, to be discouraged, to fluc¬ 
tuate in doubt, to be of the same mind with another, to 
seek knowledge, to work wickedness, to devise wicked 
imaginations, to be set to do evil, to be set to do good, 
to be astonished, to tremble, to be glad; it is said, in 
short, to do and to be exactly what the man himself is 
said to do and to be. In numberless instances where 
the word “heart” is used, it would not make sense to 
translate it by the affections or the emotions. 



THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


7 1 


“ And He hath filled him with the Spirit of God, in 
wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all 
manner of workmanship; and to devise curious works, to 
work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting 
of stones, to set them, and in carving of wood, to make any 
manner of cunning work. And He hath put in his heart 
that he may teach, both he, and Aholiab, the son of Ahisa- 
mach, of the tribe of Dan. Them hath He filled with wis¬ 
dom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, 
and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in 
blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the 
weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that 
devise cunning work. Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, 
and every wise-hearted man, in whom the Lord put wisdom 
and understanding to know how to work all manner of 
work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that 
the Lord had commanded. And Moses called Bezaleel 
and Aholiab, and every wise-hearted man, in whose heart 
the Lord had put wisdom, even every one whose heart 
stirred him up to come unto the work to do it” (Exod. 
xxxv. 31—35 ; xxxvi. 1, 2). 

No one could for a moment suppose that to be “filled 
with wisdom of heart,” or to be “ wise-hearted,” meant 
that only the feelings or the emotions were acted on by 
God. The man’s true inner self must necessarily be 
meant here. Similarly is this the case in Solomon’s 
prayer for wisdom. Solomon did not ask, and God did 
not grant, that merely his feelings should be made wise. 

“In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream 
by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. . . . 
Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge 
thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for 
who is able to judge this thy so great a people ? And the 
speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this 
thing. And God said unto him, because thou hast asked 



7 2 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither 
hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine 
enemies ; but hast asked for thyself understanding to dis¬ 
cern judgment ; behold, I have done according to thy words: 
lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so 
that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee 
shall any arise like unto thee” (i Kings iii. 5-12). 

An “understanding heart to discern judgment” in¬ 
volves something far deeper than our feelings or our 
emotions, let them be ever so lively. It involves the 
will. Paul thus describes it in Philippians— 

“ Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not 
as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, 
work out your own salvatio \ with fear and trembling. For 
it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of 
His good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 12, 13). 

The will is the stronghold of our being. If God is to 
get complete possession of us He must possess our will. 
When He says to us, “ My son, give me thy heart,” it is 
equivalent to saying, “ Surrender thy will to my control, 
that I may work in it to will and to do of my good 
pleasure.” It is not the feelings of a man that God 
wants, but his will. “ Whose adorning,” says the Apostle, 
“let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is 
not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” 
(1 Pet. iii. 3, 4). 

The “hidden man of the heart” is the Bible descrip¬ 
tion of the will. It is the interior self, the controlling 
personality of our being. And the one vital question in 
our religious experience is, What is the attitude towards 
God of this “ hidden man of the heart ” ? The very 



THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


73 


expression, “man of the heart,” seems to me full of 
meaning. It is not the feelings of the heart, but the 
“man.” Our feelings, in fact, do not belong to this 
“ hidden man,” but only to the outer or natural man, 
and are subject to all the varying changes that affect 
this “ outer man.” They are therefore of no importance 
whatever, except as they affect our personal comfort. 
They are no test of the real condition of the inner “ man 
of the heart.” If then our feelings should rebel or become 
contrary, let us not be perplexed nor discouraged. Our 
feelings are not ourselves. And what God desires is not 
fervent emotions, but a pure intention of the will. The 
whole of His scrutiny falls upon this “ hidden man of 
the heart,” and where He finds this honestly devoted to 
Himself, He disregards all the clamour of our feelings, 
and is satisfied. 

“ My son, attend to my words ; incline thine ear unto 
my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes ; keep 
them in the midst of thine heart” (Prov. iv. 20, 21, and 
xxiii. 26). 

To keep God’s words in the “midst of our hearts” 
means a far more stable and real thing than merely to 
have our emotions stirred up about them. 

It is very possible to pour out our emotions upon a 
matter without really giving our hearts at all. We some¬ 
times see people who are very lavish of their feelings, but 
whose wills remain untouched. We call this sentimen¬ 
tality, and we mean that there is no reality in it. To get 
at reality, the heart, or in other words, the will, must be 
reached. What the will does is real, and nothing else is. 

“ Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, 
because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the 



74 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy ” 
(i Chron. xxix. 9). 

“ Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so 
let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth 
a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. ix. 7). 

“ Of his own voluntary will,” “ according as he purposeth 
in his heart,” these are interchangeable expressions, 
meant to teach the incontrovertible truth, that it is only 
things done by “ our own voluntary will ” that are done 
by our real selves at all. That which is done from any 
mere surface motive is simply an outward performance, 
that has no real meaning, and that cannot be acceptable 
to the God who looks only at the heart. The true 
Kingdom of God within us can only be set up in the 
region of our will. It is not a question of splendid 
talents, nor of great deeds, nor of fervent emotions, nor 
of wonderful illuminations ; it is simply to will what God 
wills, always and in everything, and without reservation. 
We have nothing really under our own control but our 
wills. Our feelings are controlled by many other things, 
by the state of our health, or the state of the weather, or 
by the influence of other personalities upon us; but our 
will is our own. All that lies in our power is the direction 
of our will. The important question is not what we feel, 
nor what are our experiences, but whether we will what¬ 
ever God wills. This was the crowning glory of Christ, 
that His will was set to do the will of His Father. 

“Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire: mine ears 
hast thou opened: burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou 
not required. Then said I, Lo, I come; in the volume of 
the bo >k it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my 
G >d : yea, thy law is within my heart ” (Ps. xl. 6-8). 



THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


75 


Fenelon says : “ I do not ask from you a love that is 
tender and emotional, but only that your will should lean 
towards love. The purest of all loves is a will so filled 
with the will of God that there remains nothing else.” 
We “ delight ” to do the will of God, not because our 
piety is so exalted, but because we have the sense to see 
that His will is the best; and therefore what He wants 
we want also. And this sort of delight, while it may not 
be as pleasing to ourselves, is far more satisfactory to 
Him than any amount of deiight in joyous emotions or 
gratifying illuminations. 

But some one will ask whether we are not told to give 
up our wills. To this I answer, Yes, but in giving up 
our wills we are not meant to become empty of will 
power, and to be left poor, flabby, nerveless creatures 
who have no will. We are simply meant to substitute 
for our own foolish misdirected wills of ignorance and 
immaturity, the perfect and beautiful and wise will of 
God. It is not will power in the abstract we are to give 
up, but our misguided use of that will power. The will 
we are to give up is our will as it is misdirected, and so 
parted off from God’s will, not our will when it is one 
with God’s will. For when our will is in harmony with 
His will, when it has the stamp of oneness with Him, it 
would be wrong for us to give it up. 

The child is required to give up the misdirected will 
that belongs to it as an ignorant child, and we cannot let 
it say “ I will ” or “ I will not; ” but when its will is in 
harmony with ours we want it to say “ I will, or “ I will 
not,” with all the force of which it is capable. 

Our will is a piece of splendid machinery, a sort of 
il governor,” such as they have in steam engines to 



76 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


regulate the working of the steam; and everything 
depends upon the intelligence that guides its action; 
whether it is guided by our ignorance or by God’s wisdom. 
As long as our own ignorance is the guide, the whole 
machinery is sure to go wrong, and it is dangerous for us 
to say “I will” or “I will not.” But when we have 
surrendered the working of our wills to God, and are 
letting Him “work in us to will and to do of His good 
pleasure,” we are then called upon to “ set our faces 
like a flint ” to carry out His will, and must respond 
with an emphatic “I will” to every “Thou shalt” 
of His. 

“ Now the God of peace, that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you 
perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you 
that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus 
Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen ” (Heb. 
xiii. 20, 21). 

“ I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And 
be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by 
the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God ” (Rom. xii. 
i, 2 ; also Eph. vi. 6). 

“ Doing the will of God from the heart,” this is the 
only kind of doing His will that is of any value. The 
soul that has surrendered its central will to God, is the 
only soul that can do His will “ from the heart.” It is 
for this reason that we say that the essence of true virtue 
consists, not in the state of our emotions, nor in the 
greatness of our illuminations, nor in the multitude of 




THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


77 


our good works, but simply and only in the attitude of 
the will. 

The practical bearing of all this upon our religious 
experience is of vital importance. We are so accustomed 
to consider the state of our emotions as being the decid¬ 
ing test of our religious life, that we very often neglect 
to notice the state of our will at all; and we thus leave 
this stronghold of our nature utterly unguarded, whi c 
we attend only to the unimportant outposts. Thj 
moment, however, that we recognise the fact that the 
will is king, our common-sense will teach us to disregard 
the clamour of our emotions, and to claim as real the 
decision of our will, however contrary it may be to the 
voice of our emotions. 

I will take a familiar case as an illustration. A great 
trial falls upon a Christian. He knows he ought to say, 
“ Thy will be done,” in regard to it, and the purpose of 
his will is to say it; but his feelings are all in rebellion, 
and it seems to him, when he tries to say it, as if he 
were a hypocrite, and would be telling an untruth should 
he persist. Now the real fact is that all this rebellion, 
being only in the emotions, is not worth the slightest 
attention. If in his will the sufferer really chooses the 
will of God, then he himself really chooses it, and he is 
no hypocrite when he says, “Thy will be done.” The 
real thing in your experience is not the verdict of your 
emotions, but the verdict of your will; and you are far 
more in danger of hypocrisy and untruth in yielding to 
the assertions of your feelings, than in holding fast to 
the decisions of your will. If your will then at bottom is 
on God’s side, you are no hypocrite at this moment in 
claiming your position as belonging altogether to Him, 



78 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


and as being entirely submitted to His control, even 
though your feelings may all declare the contrary. 

A Christian lady of my acquaintance was at one time 
in her life an apparently hopeless victim of doubts and 
fears. She knew she ought to trust the Lord, and 
longed to do it, but she seemed utterly unable. After 
a long period of suffering from this cause, she finally 
confided her difficulties to a friend, who, as it mercifully 
happened, understood this secret concerning the will, 
and who told her that if in her will she would decide 
to trust, and, putting all her will power into trusting, 
would utterly ignore her feelings, she would sooner or 
later get the victory over all her doubts. The poor 
doubter listened in silence for a few minutes, and then, 
drawing a long breath, said with emphasis, “ Yes, I see 
it. If I choose in my will to trust, I really am trusting, 
even though all my feelings say the contrary. I do 
choose to trust now. I will trust; I will not be afraid 
again.” As she came to this decision, and thus deliber¬ 
ately put her will on the side of God’s will, all the dark¬ 
ness vanished, and her soul was brought out into the 
glorious light of the gospel; a light which was never 
dimmed again, until her eyes were opened in the presence 
of the King. 

“ And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose 
you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which 
your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, 
or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell; but 
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord ” (Josh, 
xxiv. 15). 

“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to 
return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I 



THE WILL IN RELIGION. 


79 


will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy people 
shall be my people, and thy God my God : where thou 
diest, will I die, and there will I be buried : the Lord do so 
to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. 
When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with 
her, then she left speaking unto her” (Ruth i. 16-18). 

Again, I repeat, the whole question lies in the choice of 
our will. The thing we are to do is to “choose,” without 
any regard to the state of our emotions, what attitude 
our will shall take towards God. We must recognise 
that our emotions are only the servants of our will (which 
is the real interior king in our being), and that it is the 
attitude, not of the servants, but of the master that is 
important. Is our choice deliberately made on God’s 
side ? Is our will given up to Him ? Does our will 
decide to believe and obey Him ? Are we “ Steadfastly 
minded ” to serve Him and follow Him ? If this is the 
case, then, no matter what our feelings may be, we 
ourselves are given up to Him, we ourselves decide to 
believe, we ourselves decide to obey. For my will is 
myself, and what my will chooses, I choose. 

Your attitude towards God is as real where only the 
will acts, as when every emotion coincides. It does not 
seem as real to us, but in God’s sight it is as real, and 
often I think all the more real, because it is unencum¬ 
bered with a lot of unmanageable feelings. When, there¬ 
fore, this wretched feeling of unreality or hypocrisy comes, 
do not be troubled by it It is only in the region of 
your emotions, and means nothing, except perhaps that 
your digestion is out of order, or that there is an east 
wind blowing. Simply see to it that your will is in God’s 
hands; that your true inward personality or “ Ego ” is 




8 o 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


abandoned to His working; that your choice, your 
decision, is on His side; and there leave it. Your 
surging emotions, like a tossing vessel, which by degrees 
yields to the steady pull of the anchor, finding themselves 
attached to the mighty power of God by the choice of 
your will, must inevitably sooner or later come into 
captivity, and give in their allegiance to him. It is a 
psychological fact, not generally known, that our will 
can control our feelings, if only we are “steadfastly 
minded ” so to do. Have you ever tried it in a case 
where you have got “turned around,” as we call it, in 
regard to the direction in which you were going ? Many 
times, when my feelings have declared unmistakably 
that I was going in a direction contrary to the facts, I 
have changed those feelings entirely by a steadfast 
assertion of their opposite. And similarly I have been 
able many times to control my rebellious feelings against 
the will of God by a steadfast assertion of my choice to 
accept and submit to His will. Sometimes it has seemed 
to drain to my lips all the will power I possessed, to say, 
“Thy will be done,” so contrary has it been to the 
evidence of my senses or of my emotions. But invariably 
sooner or later the victory has come. God has taken 
possession of the will thus surrendered to Him, and has 
worked in me to will and to do of His good pleasure. 

May all my readers speedily learn this practical secret 
concerning the will! 



LESSON VIII. 

REJOICE IN THE LORD. 

Foundation Text :—“ Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the 
Lord.”— Phil. iii. I (first clause). 

The consummation of all Christian experience is to 
bring the soul to the place where it has learned how to 
“ rejoice in the Lord,” and to be satisfied with Him alone. 
“ Finally, my brethren,” Paul says, or, in other words, 
“The summing up, my brethren, of all I have to say to 
you is simply this, rejoice in the Lord.” Probably, if we 
had written the Epistles, our “ finally ” would have been 
something very different. We would have said “ Finally, 
my brethren, rejoice in your faithfulness; or, rejoice in 
your wonderful experiences; or, rejoice in your earnest 
work for the Lord; or, rejoice in your growth in grace.” 
It would almost certainly have been in something about 
ourselves that we would have exhorted one another to 
rejoice. And yet a little exercise of common-sense would 
show us that any rejoicing which has self for its foundation 
must necessarily end in disappointment, for sooner or later 
self always disappoints us, no matter how good or even 
how pious a self it may be. 

“ Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his 
wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let 
not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that 
glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth 


82 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, 
judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these 
things I delight, saith the Lord” (Jer. ix. 23, 24). 

The one only thing that can bring unfailing joy to the 
soul is to understand and know God. This is only plain 
common-sense. Everything for us depends upon what 
He is. He has created us, and put us in our present 
environment, and we are absolutely in His power. If He 
is good and kind, we shall be well cared for and happy; 
if He is cruel and wicked, we must necessarily be miser¬ 
able. Just as the welfare of any possession depends 
upon the character and temper and knowledge of its 
owner, so does our welfare depend upon the character 
and temper and knowledge of God. The child of a 
drunken father can never find any lasting joy in its poor 
little possessions, for at any minute the wicked father 
may destroy them all. A good father would be infinitely 
more to the child than the most costly possessions. 
And similarly none of our possessions could be of the 
slightest worth to us, if we were under the dominion of 
a cruel and wicked God. Therefore, for us to have any 
lasting joy, we must come to the place where we under¬ 
stand and know “the Lord which exercises loving¬ 
kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.” 

In every-day life this knowledge is especially necessary, 
for every-day life as a general thing gives us very little to 
glory in. In our moments of spiritual exaltation we may 
sometimes seem to ourselves to have great wisdom, or 
great strength, or great spiritual riches of one kind or 
another, in which to glory; but when we come down 
from the “ mount of vision ” into the humdrum routine 
of every-day life, these grand spiritual possessions all 





REJOICE IN THE LORD . 


83 


seem to disappear, and we are left with nothing of them 
all to glory in. 

God alone is unchangeable; what we call “ spiritual 
blessings ” are full of the element of change. The prayer 
which is answered to-day may seem to be unanswered 
to-morrow; the promises, once so gloriously fulfilled, 
may cease to have any apparent fulfilment; the spiritual 
blessing, which was at one time such a joy, may be utterly 
lost; and nothing of all we once trusted to and rested 
on may be left us, but the hungry and longing memory 
of it all. But when all else is gone God is still left. 
Nothing changes Him. He is the same yesterday, to¬ 
day, and for ever, and in Him is no variableness, 
neither shadow of turning. And the soul that finds its 
joy in Him alone, can suffer no wavering. 

“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and 
lament, but the world shall rejoice : and ye shall be sorrow¬ 
ful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman 
when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is 
come : but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she 
remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is 
born into the world. And ye therefore now have sorrow: 
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and 
your joy no man taketh from you” (John xvi. 20-22). 

If we want a “joy that no man can take lrom us,” 
we must find it in something no man can disturb. No 
element of joy that is subject to human fluctuations can 
be in the least depended on. The only lasting joy is to 
be found in the everlasting God. In God alone, I mean, 
apart from all else; apart from His gifts, apart from His 
blessings, apart from all that can by any possibility 
change or alter. He alone is unchangeable; He is the 





8 4 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


same good, loving, tender God “ yesterday, to-day, and 
for ever; ” and we can rejoice in Him always, whether 
we are able to rejoice in His gifts and His promises or 
not. We rejoice in a baby just because it is, not because 
of anything it has done or can do for us ; and something 
like this, only infinitely deeper and wider, does it mean 
to rejoice in God. 

“ Thou wilt show me the path of life : in thy presence 
is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore ” (Ps. xvi. n). 

“ In thy presence is fulness of joy,” and fulness of joy 
is nowhere else. Just as the simple presence of the mother 
makes the child’s joy, so does the simple fact of God’s 
presence with us make our joy. The mother may not make 
a single promise to the child, nor explain any of her plans 
or purposes, but she is, and that is enough for the child. 
The child rejoices in the mother; not in her promises, 
but in herself. And to the child, there is behind all 
that changes and can change, the one unchangeable joy 
of the mother’s existence. While the mother lives, the 
child will be cared for; and the child knows this, 
instinctively, if not intelligently, and rejoices in knowing 
it. And to the children of God as well, there is behind 
all that changes and can change, the one unchangeable 
joy that God is. And while He is, His children will 
be cared for, and they ought to know it and rejoice in 
it, as instinctively and far more intelligently than the 
child of human parents. For what else can God do, 
being what He is? Neglect, indifference, forgetfulness, 
ignorance, are all impossible to Him. He knows every¬ 
thing, He cares about everything, He can manage every- 




85 


REJOICE IN THE LORD. 


thing, and He loves us! Surely this is enough for a 
“ fulness of joy ” beyond the power of words to express ; 
no matter what else may be missed besides. 

“Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall 
fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and 
the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off 
from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls : yet 
I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my 
salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will 
make my feet like hinds’ feet, and He will make me to 
walk upon mine high places” (Hab. iii. 17-19). 

Everything may go! There may seem to be no 
blossoms nor fruit in our lives, our spiritual fields may 
seem to yield no meat, and there may be apparently no 
flocks nor herds in our spiritual stalls; but if we know 
what it is to rejoice, not in any of these things, but in 
the Lord alone, we shall find, as the prophet did, that 
our feet are made “ like hinds’ feet ” for swiftness, and 
we shall walk in “ high places ” of spiritual triumph. 

“And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and 
their heart shall rejoice as through wine : yea, their children 
shall see it, and be glad ; their heart shall rejoice in the 
Lord” (Zech. x. 7). 

To rejoice in the Lord is not a pious fiction, nor is it 
merely a religious phrase. Neither is it anything mysteri¬ 
ous or awe-inspiring. It is just good plain common-sense 
happiness and comfort. It is something people around 
us can see and be glad about It smoothes away the 
frowns, and shuts out the sighs. Long faces and gloomy 
tones of voice disappear in its presence. It is even full 
of innocent mirthfulness and light-heartedness. I re¬ 
member my dear father, who was a saint on earth if ever 





86 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


there was one, but I must confess a very jolly one, teach¬ 
ing me once a great lesson about this. It was during 
what was considered a very solemn occasion, and some¬ 
thing struck his sense of the ludicrous, and he gave a 
merry light-hearted laugh. A friend present reproved 
him for laughing on such a “ solemn occasion,” when he 
turned to me and said in his dear merry voice, calling me 
by my pet name, “ Han, if people who know their sins 
are forgiven, and that God loves them and cares for 
them, cannot laugh, I don’t know who can.” I believe 
I have never since had a good laugh at anything, that it 
has not recalled to my mind my father’s genuine happi¬ 
ness in knowing himself to be in the care and keeping of 
his Father in heaven. 

“ Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat and 
drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom 
nothing is prepared : for this day is holy unto our Lord : 
neither be ye sorry ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. 
So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your 
peace, for the day is holy ; neither be ye grieved. And all 
the people went their way to eat, and to drink and to send 
portions, and to make great mirth, because they had under¬ 
stood the words that were declared unto them” (Neh. 
viii. 10-12). 

Joy is always a source of strength. When we are 
happy we feel equal to anything; when we are cast down, 
everything is a burden. This is true on the earthly 

plane, and of course it is just as true on the spiritual 

plane; for the psychological laws that govern the two 

realms are the same. It seems, however, as if many 

Christians thought the laws of these two realms were 
exactly opposite to one another, and that depression and 



REJOICE IN THE LORD. 


8 7 


discouragement were greater elements of strength in the 
spiritual life than joy could ever be. Consequently 
depression and discouragement are looked upon as very 
pious and humble frames of mind, and joy is considered 
to be a sort of spiritual bon-bon, only to be partaken of 
at rare and uncertain intervals. It is no wonder that 
the lives of such Christians languish and are withered. 

“ The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth ; the 
pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, 
even all the trees of the field are withered: because joy is 
withered away from the sons of men” (Joel i. 12). 

“ Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joy¬ 
fulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of 
all things ; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which 
the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, 
and in nakedness, and in want of all things : and He shall 
put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until He have destroyed 
thee” (Deut xxviii. 47, 48). 

Notice the use of the word “because,” and “therefore,” 
in these two passages. “ Because,” the Lord is not 
served with joyfulness and gladness, “therefore” there 
can be no fruit, and service becomes “a yoke of iron” 
upon our necks. This “because” and “therefore” are 
inseparably connected in the spiritual life. The “ there¬ 
fore” is not an arbitrary sentence of God, but is the 
natural and necessary result of the “because.” If we 
will not rejoice and be glad in heart in the Lord, then 
we shall inevitably be in hunger, and in thirst, and in 
nakedness, and in want of all things elsewhere. For our 
souls are of such a divine origin, that no other joy but 
joy in God can ever satisfy them. It is like trying to 
satisfy a man of culture with the joys of a savage. He 



88 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


simply could not enjoy them. They would give him no 
pleasure, but would, instead, bore him and weary him 
beyond words; and this is why all the joys of earth so 
soon pall upon us. They cannot satisfy the soul that 
was made for God. Solomon discovered this. 

“And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from 
them ; I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart 
rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my portion of all 
my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hand 
had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do : 
and, behold, ail was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there 
was no profit under the sun. Therefore I hated life; 
because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous 
unto me : for all is vanity and vexation of spirit ” (Eccl. ii. 
10, ii, 17). 

If ever a man had his -fill of earthly joys, Solomon had, 
and yet at the end of it all his verdict was, “ Behold, all 
is vanity and vexation of spirit, and there is no profit 
under the sun.” Thousands of people since have given 
the same testimony. Faber says— 

“ God only is the creature’s home, 

Though rough and straight the road ; 

Yet nothing else can satisfy 
The soul that’s made for God.” 

God, who made the soul, made it for this high destiny, 
and His object, therefore, in all the discipline and train¬ 
ing of life, is to bring us to the place where we shall find 
our joy in Him alone. For this purpose He is obliged 
often to stain our pleasant pictures, and to thwart and 
disappoint our brightest anticipations. He detaches us 
from all else that He may attach us to Himself; not from 
an arbitrary will, but because He knows that only so can 



REJOICE IN THE LORD. 89 


we be really happy. I do not mean by this that it will 
be necessary for all one’s friends to die, or for all one’s 
money to be lost; but I do mean that the soul shall find 
itself, either from inward or outward causes, desolate and 
bereft, and empty of all comfort, except in God. We 
must come to the end of everything that is not God, in 
order to find our joy in God alone. 

“ He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord 
God will wipe away tears from off all faces ; and the rebuke 
of His people shall He take away from off all the earth : 
for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that 
day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and 
He will save us : this is the Lord; we have waited for 
Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation ” (Isa. 
xxv. 8, 9). 

To every soul there must come sooner or later a time 
when we, too, can say, “ Lo, this is our God; we have 
waited for Him ; we will be glad and rejoice in His 
salvation.” Through all the experiences of life this is 
what we are “ waiting ” for, and all our training and disci¬ 
pline is to lead us to this. I say “ waiting for,” not in the 
sense of any delay on God’s part, but because of the 
delay on our own part. God is always seeking to make 
Himself our “exceeding joy,” but until we have been 
detached from all earthly joys, and are ready to find our 
joy in Him alone, we must still “wait for Him.” We 
think that the delay is altogether on His part, but the 
real truth is, that all the waiting that is necessary is for 
Him to wait for us. 

“ Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my 
exceeding joy; yea, upon the harp \\ull I praise thee, 
O God, my God” (Ps. xliii. 4). 




90 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


To “go” to Him is nothing mysterious. It simply 
means to turn our minds to Him, to rest our hearts on 
Him, and to turn away from all other resting-places. It 
means that we must not look at, or, in other words, think 
about and trouble over our circumstances, or our sur¬ 
roundings, or our perplexities, or our experiences, but 
must look at and think about the Lord; and must ask 
ourselves, not, “ How do I feel about this?” but “How 
does the Lord feel?” not, “How shall I manage it?” 
but, “ How will He manage it ? ” 

“ Behold, God is my salvation ; I will trust and not be 
afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; 
He also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall 
ye draw water out of the wells of salvation” (Isa. xii. 2, 3). 

Until we can truly say “ God is my salvation ”—mean¬ 
ing God only, and nobody and nothing else—we shall 
not be able to draw water out of the wells of salvation. 
If anything beside God seems to us to be our salvation, 
any “experiences,” or “blessings,” or “good works,” or 
even “sound doctrines,” we are manifestly not draw¬ 
ing water out of the wells of God’s salvation, but are 
instead trying in vain to draw it out of broken cisterns 
that we ourselves have hewed, and that hold no water 
(Jer. ii. 13). 

“ But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice : 
let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them : 
let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee ” 
(Ps. v. 11 ; see also Phil. iii. 3; Luke i. 46, 47; Isa. 
xxix. 19 ; Ps. civ. 33, 34). 

The Bible is full of these declarations concerning 
rejoicing in the Lord. I can only quote a few of them, 
but it will repay Bible students to look them up. 



REJOICE IN THE LORD. 


9i 


In order, however, fully to understand the subject, we 
must have a clear comprehension of what spiritual joy 
and gladness really are. Some people seem to look 
upon spiritual joy as a thing, a sort of lump or package 
of joy, stored away in one’s heart, to be looked at and 
rejoiced over. Now, as a fact, joy is not a thing at all. 
It is only the gladness that comes from the possession of 
something good, or the knowledge of something pleasant. 
And the Christian’s joy is simply his gladness in knowing 
Christ, and in his possession of such a God and Saviour. 
We do not' on an earthly plane rejoice in our joy, but in 
the thing that causes our joy. And on the heavenly 
plane it is the same. We are not to rejoice in our 
joy, but we are to “rejoice in the Lord, and joy in 
the God of our salvation.” And this joy no man nor 
devil can take from us, and no earthly sorrows can 
touch. 

All the spiritual writers of past generations have re¬ 
cognised this joy in God, and all of them have written 
concerning the stripping process that seems necessary 
to bring us to it. They have called this process by 
different names, some calling it “ inward desolation,” and 
some the “ winter of the soul,” and some the “ dispensa¬ 
tion of darkness,” but all meaning one and the same 
thing; and that thing is the experience of finding all 
earthly joys stained or taken away, in order to drive the 
soul to God alone. 

One of these writers says that the spiritual life is 
divided into three stages : the stage of joyful beginnings, 
the stage of desolation, and the stage of joy in God 
alone. First, there is the stage of beginnings, when the 
soul is full of sensible delights, and when everything in 



92 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


our religious life seems to prosper. Then, as the soul 
advances in the divine life, there comes very often the 
stage of desolation, when the Christian seems to pass 
through a wilderness, and to suffer, it may be, the loss 
of all things, both inward and outward. And then, if 
this period of desolation is faithfully trayersed, there 
comes finally, on the other side of it, the stage of an 
unaltered and unalterable joy and gladness in God. 
All has been lost in the desert stage, that all may be 
found in God further on. The only danger is lest the 
soul in this desert stage should faint and fail under the 
stress of desolation, and should turn back to the flesh- 
pots of Egypt for its joy. Our writer says quaintly that 
this desert is filled with the bodies of “frustrate saints;” 
and I think we can understand what he means. 

“ And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come 
to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : 
they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
shall flee away” (Isa. xxxv. io). 

Every ransomed soul must come sooner or later to 
this place of “everlasting joy and if the only path to 
it lies through the wilderness, then, so be it, we will 
welcome the wilderness, and traverse it with a cheerful 
faith. We must learn to have all our joy in the Lord, 
and to rejoice in Him when all else in heaven and earth 
shall seem to fail. We must learn to “ rejoice in God,” 
just God alone, simply and only because of what He is 
in Himself, and not because of what He promises or of 
what He gives. This is the positive command of the 
gospel. Do we obey it ? 

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” 
(Phil. iv. 4). 



REJOICE IN THE LORD. 


93 


Can we answer with the Apostle and the Psalmist that 
we do joy and rejoice in God ? 

“And not only so, but we also joy in God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the 
atonement” (Rom. v. n). 

“ So, Lord, if thou takest from me all the rest, 

Thyself, with each resumption, drawing nigher, 

It shall but hurt me as the thorn of the briar, 

When I reach to the pale flower in its breast. 

To have thee, Lord, is to have all thy best; 

Holding it by its very life divine, 

To let my friend’s hand go, and take his heart in mine.” 



LESSON IX. 

THE MEANING OF TROUBLE . 

Foundation Text :—“Although affliction cometh not forth of 
the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground ; yet man is 
born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”— Job v. 6, 7. 

Trouble is an essential and inevitable thing in this 
stage of our existence. We are “born” to it. Our 
every-day life is full of it. It is part of our universal en¬ 
vironment. No one escapes it. Common-sense would 
tell us, therefore, that there must be something bound 
up in trouble which is necessary for us, something 
without which we should suffer a grievous loss. 

It cannot be, as so many seem to think, because of 
neglect on God’s part that trouble should be so universal, 
for the Bible plainly teaches that it is a part of our 
birthright. “ Man that is born of woman,” we are told, 
“ is of few days and full of trouble; ” and the Psalmist, 
in considering this, declares that he knows God’s judg¬ 
ments to be right, and that He had afflicted him in 
faithfulness. 

It is very plain, therefore, that troubles come because 
of God’s faithfulness, and not, as so many seem to think, 
because of His unfaithfulness. We are taught this in a 
very striking way in the story of Lazarus. Martha evi¬ 
dently thought their trouble had come because the Lord 
94 


THE MEANING OF TROUBLE. 


95 


had failed to be present in the moment of need. “ Lord,” 
she cried, “ if thou hadst been here my brother had not 
died.” But the Lord’s absence had not been a mistake 
or an oversight. He had planned not to be there ; and 
His absence was for a purpose of mercy. 

“Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of 
Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was 
that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and 
wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was 
sick.) Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, 
behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard 
that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the 
glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified 
thereby. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and 
Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, 
He abode two days still in the same place where He was. 

. . . Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. 
And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the 
intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him ” 
(John xi. 1-15). 

He loved them, therefore He stayed away! It was 
His faithfulness, not His unfaithfulness, that permitted 
their sorrow to come upon them without hindrance from 
Him. And we may be sure that what was true of their 
sorrow is true of our sorrows also. We say in our 
ignorance, “ If thou hadst been here, this or that would 
not have gone wrong;” but if we could see into the 
heart of the Lord we should hear Him saying in reply, 
“ I am glad for your sakes that I was not there.” “ I 
am glad.” Love can never be glad of anything that 
hurts its loved ones, unless there is to come out of the 
hurt some infinitely greater blessing. Therefore we may 
be sure, no matter how unlikely it may seem, that hidden 



9 6 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


in every one of our sorrows there is a blessing which it 
would be a most grievous loss to us to miss. 

“ For the Lord will not cast off for ever : but though He 
cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the 
multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly, 
nor grieve the children of men” (Lam. iii. 31-33;. 

The Lord afflicts us, not because He likes to, but 
because He must, because only so can He bestow upon 
us the blessings that affliction holds in its gift. We must 
settle down to this as a fact, and never question it. If 
there had been any other way of giving us the blessings 
we need, we may be sure our loving and tender Heavenly 
Father would have adopted it. He does not “ willingly ” 
afflict us. There can be, therefore, no other way ! 

What, then, are the blessings that sorrow and trial 
bear in their hands ? What is the meaning of the trouble 
of which the world is so full? 

The answer is to be found in this one sentence, “ For 
whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” The meaning 
of trouble is love. For trouble is not punishment in our 
sense of the word ; it is chastening. To human thought 
the word punishment has a legal sense, and means retri¬ 
bution or vengeance. But God’s idea of punishment is 
the parental idea of chastening. To chasten means, 
according to Webster, “ to inflict pain upon any one in 
order to purify from errors or faults.” God’s chastenings, 
therefore, are for purifying, not for vengeance. “ Whom 
He loves He chastens,” not whom He hates, or whom 
He is angry with. The meaning of trouble, therefore, is 
plainly that we may be made “ partakers of God’s holi¬ 
ness.” In other words, it is for “character building;” 



THE MEANING OF TROUBLE . 


97 


and character building is to us the most important thing 
in the whole universe. What happens to me is of no 
account whatever compared to what I am. Therefore 
good common-sense tells me, if I will only listen to it, 
that no present ease, or comfort, or absence of trial, is to 
be weighed for a moment against the building up of 
character for eternity. 

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are not seen : for the things which are 
seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are 
eternal ” ( 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18). 

Anything that is to do such a wonderful thing for us 
as to work out a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory, cannot surely be counted otherwise than as a 
blessing. And all affliction would be so counted, I am 
very sure, if we had but eyes to see its outcome. The 
marble may quiver and shrink from the heavy blows of 
the mallet, but there can be nothing but joy and rejoicing 
over the beautiful statue that is wrought out thereby. 

But some may ask whether this is true of all affliction ? 
We acknowledge that there are troubles which are 
evidently meant for blessings; but are there not others 
that from their very nature must be only and always 
curses ? To this I would answer, that I believe all trouble, 
no matter of what sort or nature, is meant to purify and 
sanctify us; and that, moreover, it always does so in 
a greater or less degree, even though we may, most of 
us, fail to receive all the full benefit that we might have 
gained had we been more submissive and humble The 
prophet tells us the effect of trouble when he says, “ Lord, 

G 



98 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


in trouble have they visited thee; they poured out a 
prayer when thy chastening was upon them ” (Isa. 
xxvi. 16 ). I believe this is true, even in those cases 
where the trouble is the direct result of our own sins. 
We see that it was so in the many instances where the 
children of Israel were plunged into trouble by reason 
of their sins. 

“ For all this they sinned still, and believed not for His 
wondrous works. Therefore their days did He consume in 
vanity, and their years in trouble. When He slew them, 
then they sought Him : and they returned and inquired 
early after God. And they remembered that God was 
their rock, and the high God their Redeemer ” (Ps. lxxviii. 

3 2_ 3S)- 

“ Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against 
thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy 
prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, 
and they wrought great provocations. Therefore thou 
deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed 
them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried 
unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven ; and according 
to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who 
saved them out of the hand of their enemies” (Neh. ix. 
26, 27). 

Nothing could be more evident than this, that most, if 
not all, of these troubles that befell the children of Israel 
were the direct and legitimate result of their own sins. 
They were “ disobedient and rebelled against God, and 
cast His law behind their backs,” and “ therefore God 
delivered them into the hand of their enemies.” But it 
is equally evident that this very punishment was meant 
as a chastening to bring them back to their allegiance 
to Him, and that it always accomplished its purpose. 




THE MEANING OF TROUBLE. 


99 


“When he slew them, then they sought Him.” It is the 
Divine way; and it is the way of love. 

“ Implacable is love ! 

Foes may be bought or teased 
From their malign intent; 

But he goes unappeased 
Who is on kindness bent. ” 

Hate punishes for vengeance, but love punishes for 
reformation. God has no feelings of vengeance to 
satisfy towards us, that He sends trouble upon us. But 
He has a heart of implacable love, that cannot be satis¬ 
fied until it sees us perfect. Let us be thankful then 
that our God loves us enough to chasten us, and let us 
learn to kiss the rod with which He smites. “He that 
spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him 
chasteneth him betimes.” How thankful we ought to be 
that our Father in Heaven loves us too much to spare 
the rod, and that His love is wise enough to chasten us 
betimes ! 

In that wonderful story by Bunyan of the Pilgrim’s 
progress heavenward, we are told concerning Christian 
and Hopeful, that at one time they wandered out of the 
right path, and became so entangled in a net that they 
could not escape. “ Thus they lay bewailing themselves 
in the net. At last they espied a shining one coming 
towards them with a whip of small cords in his hand. 

. Then he said to them, ‘Follow me, that I may 
set you in your way again;’ so he led them back 
to the way which they had left. . . . Then I saw in my 
dream that he commanded them to lie down ; which 
when they did, he chastised them sore, to teach them 
the good way wherein they should walk; and as he 



IOO 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


chastised them he said, ‘ As many as I love I rebuke 
and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent.’ This 
done, he bids them go their way, and take good heed to 
the other directions of the shepherds. So they thanked 
him for all his kindness, and went softly along the 
right way singing.” 

“ Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have 
chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own 
sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should 
my name be polluted ? and I will not give my glory unto 
another” (Isa. xlviii. io, n). 

“ But who may abide the day of His coming ? and who 
shall stand when He appeareth ? for He is like a refiner’s 
fire, and like fullers’ soap : and He shall sit as a refiner and 
purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, 
and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto 
the Lord an offering in righteousness ” (Mai. iii. 2, 3). 

“And I will bring the third part thlough the fire, and 
will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as 
gold is tried : they shall call on my name, and I will hear 
them : I will say, It is my people : and they shall say, 
The Lord is my God ” (Zech. xiii. 9). 

To refine anything does not mean to punish it, but 
only to purify it; to get rid of all its dross and rubbish, 
and to bring out its full beauty and worth. It is a 
blessing, not a curse. And instead of its being some¬ 
thing God demands of us, it really is something we 
ought to demand of God. We have a right to be made 
as pure as God can make us. This is our claim upon 
Him. He created us, and we have a right to demand 
that He should make out of us the best He can, and 
should do this refining work on the creatures He has 
called into being. It is His duty to burn up our dross, 



THE MEANING OF TROUBLE. 


ioi 


and bring out our full beauty and worth. Love demands 
that He should. 

George Macdonald speaks some strong words con¬ 
cerning this : “ Man has a claim on God, a Divine claim 
for any pain, want, disappointment, or misery that will 
help to make him what he ought to be. He has a claim 
to be punished, and to be spared not one pang that may 
urge him towards repentance; yea, he has a claim to 
be compelled to repent; to be hedged in on every side, 
to have one after another of the strong, sharp-toothed 
sheep-dogs of the Great Shepherd sent after him, to 
thwart him in any desire, foil him in any plan, frustrate 
him of any hope, until he come to see at length that 
nothing will ease his pain, nothing make life a thing 
worth having, but the presence of the living God within 
him ; that nothing is good but the will of God ; nothing 
noble enough for the desire of the heart of man but 
oneness with the eternal. For this God must make him 
yield his very being, that He himself may enter in and 
dwell with him.” 

Trouble and sorrow, therefore, are not our curse, but 
one of our most cherished rights. We are like statues, 
“hewn in the rough,” which can only be perfectly shaped 
by means of the chisel’s blows; and these blows are 
surely the statue’s right. 

“ ’Tis that I am not good—that is enough ; 

I pry no farther—that is not the way. 

Here, O my potter, is thy making stuff! 

Set thy wheel going; let it whir and play. 

The chips in me, the stones, the straws, the sand, 

Cast them out with fine separating hahd, 

And make a vessel of thy yielding clay.” 

This, then, is the meaning of trouble. It is to make 




102 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


us good. And we have a right to be made good, for it 
is God’s purpose concerning us. Let us therefore accept 
our trials as a part of our birthright, and give thanks to 
the Divine Potter that He has set His wheel whirring, 
and is casting out, with a “ fine, separating hand,” all 
the chips, and stones, and sand that mar the perfect 
purity of our clay. 

How changed would be the aspect of all our trials if 
we could see them in this light! How easy it would be 
to say “ Thy will be done,” if we could once recognise 
the fact that trouble meant only and always blessing for 
us! I think the Psalmist understood this when he 
wrote that wonderful 107th Psalm, in which he tells us 
of how the Lord chastened Israel, when they rebelled 
against Him and wandered away from Him, and how 
this chastening always brought them back to cry unto 
the Lord; and then breaks out after each such recital 
with the exultant cry, “Oh that men would praise the 
Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works 
to the children of men ! ” 

In view of all the blessings that troubles and trials 
have wrought for many of us, can we not also join with 
our whole souls in this triumphant cry ? 

Besides this blessed chastening and refining work of 
sorrow and trouble, I believe it has often another purpose, 
and that is to thwart us in a course that our Heavenly 
Father knows would be disastrous, and to turn us into 
safer and more successful paths. Disappointments are 
often direct gateways to prosperity in the very things we 
have thought they were going to ruin for ever. Joseph’s 
story is an illustration of this. He had the promise of 
a kingdom, but instead he received slavery, and cruel 



THE MEANING OF TROUBLE. 


103 


treachery, and imprisonment, and it looked as if all hope 
of a kingdom was over for ever. But these very trials 
were the gateway into his kingdom, and in no other way 
could he have reached it. God’s thwartings are often 
our grandest opportunities. We start in a pathway that 
we think is going to lead us to a desired end, but God 
in His Providence thwarts us, and then we rashly con¬ 
clude that all is over, and are in despair. But after a 
little we find that that very thwarting has been the 
divine opportunity for the success we desired; or, if 
not for just that, for a far better thing that we would 
infinitely rather have. He changes the very thing we 
thought was our sorrow into our crown of joy. 

“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto 
them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the 
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they 
might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the 
Lord, that He might be glorified” (Isa. lxi. 3). 

“ Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing : 
thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with glad¬ 
ness ” (Ps. xxx. 11 ; also Isa. xxxv. 6, 7). 

Many times in my life in practical affairs I have had 
my “mourning turned into dancing,” because I have 
found that the trial I mourned was really a gateway into 
the good things I longed for. And I cannot help sus¬ 
pecting that this is far more often the case than we are 
inclined to think. I knew a man who had both his feet 
frozen off, and was thwarted in all his plans by the lame¬ 
ness that ensued. He thought his life was rained, and 
mourned with unspeakable anguish. But this very trial 
opened out for him another career which proved finally 
to be the thing of all others he would have chosen, and 




io4 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


which brought him a success far beyond the wildest 
dreams of his early aspirations. His greatest trouble 
became his greatest triumph. Instances of this are in¬ 
numerable. Every life has some. 

“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with 
peace : the mountains and the hills shall break forth before 
you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap 
their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir 
tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle- 
tree : and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an ever¬ 
lasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isa. lv. 12, 13). 

“For the Lord shall comfort Zion : He will comfort all 
her waste places : and He will make her wilderness like 
Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and 
gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the 
voice of melody” (Isa. li. 3). 

Since we have so often experienced our deserts to be 
turned into the garden of the Lord, and have found fir- 
trees and myrtle-trees coming up where we thought there 
were only thorns and briers, the marvellous thing is that 
we should ever let ourselves be so utterly cast down and 
overwhelmed when fresh trouble comes. I think it would 
be a good exercise of soul for us to write out a little record 
for our own private use of all the times when this marvel¬ 
lous transformation has happened in our experience. It 
might make us less ready to despair under our next trial. 

But the true secret of endurance lies deeper than this. 
It is to see God’s hand in our trouble, and, losing sight 
altogether of second causes, to accept it directly from 
Him. Man may be the instrument to bring about our 
trouble, or we may even be the instruments ourselves, but 
back of all is God, who controls everything, and who 
will not let anything reach us that is not meant for bless- 



THE MEANING OF TROUBLE. 


105 


ing to us, either as refining, or chastening, or as provi¬ 
dential thwarting. Why should we allow ourselves to be 
so needlessly unhappy with thinking that our trouble is 
one in which God has no part ? There cannot be any 
such trouble. If not a sparrow falls to the ground with¬ 
out our Father, even though a stone from the hand of a 
cruel boy may cause the fall, then not a trial can come to 
us without Him, even though some cruel or careless lu.nd 
may start it on its way. By the time the trial reaches us, it 
has become God’s will for us, and is meant to bless us. 

“In all their affliction, He was afflicted, and the angel 
of His presence saved them : in His love and in His pity 
He redeemed them ; and He bare them, and carried them 
all the days of old” (Isa. lxiii. 9). 

“For He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of 
the afflicted ; neither hath He hid His face from him ; but 
when he cried unto Him, He heard” (Ps. xxii. 24). 

It is the “angel of His presence” in all our afflictions 
that saves us; and this never fails us. No affliction, let 
its source be what it may, is “ abhorred or despised ” by 
Him, and in none does He hide His face from us. 
Always He is present, if only we will turn to Him. 
Perhaps we can tell no human being of our trial. Perhaps 
if we did tell them they would abhor and despise it. But 
God knows it, and He does not hide His face from us, 
nor abhor our affliction. The “angel of His presence” 
will always save us, if only we will let Him, and He will 
make all things, even the saddest of troubles, those that 
arise from our own sins, “work together for our highest 
good.” 

“ Many are the afflictions of the righteous : but the Lord 
delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones: 
not one of them is broken” (Ps. xxxiv. 19, 20). 



LESSON X. 

THE HIDDEN GOD. 


Foundation Text: —“Oh, that I knew where I might find 
Him ! that I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause 
before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. . . . Behold, I go 
forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive 
Him : on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold 
Him : He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him.” 
—Job xxiii. 3-9. 

“ Oh, that I knew where I might find Him ! ” This 
despairing cry was uttered fifteen centuries before Christ; 
and one can perhaps understand that in those dark days 
there might have seemed to be some cause for its utter¬ 
ance. But that it should ever be uttered now, by any 
soul that possesses the Bible, and has even the slightest 
faith in Christ, would seem impossible, did we not know, 
alas ! that it is. only too often the cry of even Christian 
hearts. In fact, it is almost one of the greatest difficulties 
in the lives of many Christians, that God seems so to 
hide Himself from their longing gaze, and that this hiding 
seems so often to be in anger or in neglect. This is 
especially the case in our every-day lives. On Sundays, 
in church services, or in prayer-meetings, we may be 
helped by our environment to feel the presence of God 
more consciously; but in the ordinary business and 

bustle of every-day life, we are apt to lose this COnSCioUS- 

106 


THE HIDDEN GOD. 


107 


ness; and then, because we do not feel His presence, 
we think He cannot be there. 

“ Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord ? arise, cast us not 
off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and for- 
gettest our affliction and our oppression ? For our soul is 
bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth ” 
(Ps. xliv. 23-25). 

“Will the Lord cast off for ever ? and will He be favour¬ 
able no more? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? dot 1 
His promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be 
gracious ? hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies ” 
(Ps. lxxvii. 7—9). 

The natural heart is continually asking such questions 
as these. Because we cannot see the hand of God in 
our affairs, we rush to the conclusion that He has lost 
sight of them and of us. We look at the “seemings” 
of things instead of at the underlying facts, and declare 
that, because God is unseen, He must necessarily be 
absent. And especially is this the case if we are con¬ 
scious of having ourselves wandered away from Him 
and orgotten Him. We judge Him by ourselves, and 
think that He must have also forgotten and forsaken us. 
We measure His truth by our falseness, and find it hard 
to believe He can be faithful when we know ourselves 
to be so unfaithful. But there is neither common-sense 
in this, nor Divine revelation. As regards common-sense, 
how utterly foolish it is, I might even say idiotic, to make 
our feelings the test of God’s actions ; as if He came and 
went in response to the continual changes in our emo¬ 
tions ! Such ideas would turn the Omnipotent, ever¬ 
present God, into a mere helpless puppet, pulled by 
the strings of our varying feelings ! But this, of course, 



io8 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


is inconceivable; and, as regards Divine revelation, is 
also equally impossible ; for the God revealed to us in the 
Bible is a God who never, under any conceivable circum¬ 
stances, leaves us, or forgets us, or neglects our interests. 
He is shown to us there as a tender Shepherd, who per¬ 
forms with the utmost fidelity all a shepherd’s duties; who 
does not forsake His sheep in the cloudy and dark day, 
nor desert them when the wolf cometh; but who always 
draws nearer in every time of need, and goes after each 
sheep that wanders until He finds it. The hireling 
fleeth when danger appears, because he is an hireling, 
but the good Shepherd only sticks closer than ever. It 
is impossible to imagine a good shepherd forgetting or 
forsaking his sheep. In fact, it is his duty to stick by 
them under all circumstances, and to watch over them 
and care for them every moment. And the God who is 
thus revealed to us as a “good Shepherd” must neces¬ 
sarily be as faithful to His responsibilities as an earthly 
shepherd is required to be to his. His care of us may 
be a hidden care, but it is none the less real, and all 
things in the daily events of our lives are made to work 
subservient to His gracious purposes towards us. He 
may seem to have forgotten us, or neglected us, but it 
can never be anything but a seeming, for it would be 
impossible for the God who is revealed to us in the face 
of Jesus Christ to do such a thing. 

“ But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my 
Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking 
child, that she should not have compassion on the son of 
her womb ? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 
Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands ; 
thy walls are continually before me” (Isa. xlix. 14-16). 



THE HIDDEN GOD. 


109 


What an overwhelming answer to the cry of any heart 
that thinks God has forsaken and forgotten it 1 “ Can 

a woman forget her sucking child ? ” Impossible, we say. 
And yet a woman might even do this incredible thing, 
but the Lord never. And to prove to us how impos¬ 
sible it would be, He tells us that He has graven us on 
the “palms of His hands;” a place where, even should 
He try, He could not help continually seeing us. 

And yet in spite of the many emphatic assertions such 
as this with which the Bible is filled, even Christians 
sometimes allow themselves to think *that God has for¬ 
gotten or neglected them! 

I knew a Christian once who had been plunged into 
the depths of darkness and despair by the temptation to 
believe that God had forsaken and forgotten him. A 
trouble had come upon him in a distant land, through 
no agency of his own, in a matter which he had especi¬ 
ally committed to the care of God, and he did not see 
how it could have happened unless the Lord had for¬ 
saken him. He poured out his anguish and his doubts 
to a friend, and asked in his despair if there was any 
help. This friend was one who knew God, and who 
was therefore as sure of His presence and loving care 
in the times when He seemed to be hidden from sight 
as in the times when He made Himself more mani¬ 
fest, and he said to his despairing friend, “ Do you be¬ 
lieve the Bible, my brother?” “Believe the Bible,” 
replied the sufferer, “why, of course I do, but what has 
that to do with it?” “ Everything,” replied his friend, “for 
the Bible says the Lord never leaves us nor forsakes us, 
and that He is always present everywhere. Now, do 
you believe He was present in Australia when this event 



IIO 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


took place ? ” “ He must have been, I suppose,” said 

the poor sufferer rather reluctantly, as though unwilling 
to admit the fact. “You say,” continued the friend, 
“that you committed this matter to Him, and you are 
obliged to admit that He was present in Australia at the 
time. Now, I ask you, did the Lord attend to the 
matter you had committed to Him, or did He neglect 
it? ” To this there was no reply. After a solemn pause 
the friend spoke again, “You say God was present in 
Australia, and you say you had committed this matter 
to Him. Now I ask you again, as in His presence, did 
He attend to it or did He neglect it ? ” “ Oh ! ” answered 
the sufferer, with a sudden illumination of faith, “ I see 
it all. God was present there, and He did attend to it, 
of course, and it must be all right, though I cannot see 
how. The will of God be done ! I can trust Him even 
about this, and can believe that in spite of all seemings 
to the contrary, He will make it all work together for 
good.” 

“ By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of 
the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible ” 
(Heb. xi. 27). 

This is the vital point, to see “ Him who is invisible.” 
Everything hinges on this; and the difference between 
a triumphant Christian and a despondent one generally 
arises from the fact that the former has his eyes opened 
to discern in all things the hidden God, while the latter 
is full of doubts as to His presence. But since He has 
Himself said, “ I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” 
surely every one of us is bound to believe Him, and to 
assert “boldly,” in sp ; te of every seeming to the con- 



THE HIDDEN GOD. 


iii 


trary, our unwavering confidence in the fact of His 
abiding presence and His unfailing care 

“ But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, 
and He that formed thee, O Israel; Fear not, for I have 
redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art 
mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow 
thee : when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not 
be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For 
I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour : 
I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee ” 
(Isa. xliii. 1-3). 

We may be perfectly sure of this, that the time of our 
need is the time of His closest and tenderest watchful¬ 
ness. What would we think of a mother who should 
run away from her children the moment they got into 
trouble? And yet this hateful thing, which we would 
resent in any human mother, some of God’s own children 
do not hesitate to ascribe to Him ! 

“And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew 
not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known : 
I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things 
straight. These things will I do unto them, and not for¬ 
sake them” (Isa. xlii. 16). 

Even in our blindness and our ignorance of His pre¬ 
sence He is watching over us. 

A story I heard once from a friend, who was cognisant 
of all the circumstances, concerning the watchful and 
overruling care of a hidden caretaker, will illustrate what 
I mean. A very feeble old lady was obliged to take a 
long and difficult journey alone. She was burdened 
with a large amount of troublesome luggage, and was 





112 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


supplied with but little money to make travelling easy. 
She was too reserved to permit any one to speak to her 
about the needs and dangers of the journey, which, 
however, her friends could not but foresee, and too 
proud to make it possible for any one to offer help. 
Her friends were at an utter loss to know what to do, 
when a noble young man, almost a stranger to her, who 
had heard the circumstances, solved the difficulty by 
announcing that matters of business required him to 
take that identical journey at that identical time. He 
said nothing to the old lady of the plan he had formed 
to wait on and care for her, as he knew if he did, her 
pride would take fright. He simply in secret arranged 
all his plans to fit in with hers. When it was time to 
start on the journey he had a cart at the door for his 
own luggage, and a carriage to convey himself to the 
train, and then said to the old lady in an off-hand sort 
of way, “Oh, by-the-bye, as we are going by the same 
train, perhaps you might as well let your luggage go with 
mine, and you yourself might as well take a seat in my 
carriage.” It all looked so accidental that the old lady 
never dreamed of any pre-arrangement, and accepted his 
offer as naturally as he had made it, and was thus saved 
a weary walk to the train. He found her a seat near 
himself in the railway car, and kept on the alert all the 
time to give her comfort and save her fatigue. When 
he thought she needed refreshment he had some brought 
in for himself, and asked her as a kindness to pity his 
loneliness and share it with him. When changes in 
trains had to be made, he always said, as if casually, “ I 
might as well see to your luggage when I see to my 
own.” When they stopped at a station overnight he 



THE HIDDEN GOD. 


ii3 

took her to the hotel in the carriage ordered for himself. 
In short, he cared for her throughout as a tender son 
would have done, and never left her until he saw her 
safe at her destination; and yet, never once did she 
^ suspect that anything he did was more than accidental, 
or was not even quite natural in a young man, who was 
travelling the same way, and, feeling lonely, had taken 
rather a fancy for her company. In fact, so entirely did 
he make it all seem like a favour done to himself, that 
she scarcely thanked him, and not for a moment did she 
realise that all the comfort and ease of her journey, of 
which she rather boasted afterward, were entirely owing 
to his care and attentions. 

“ Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant 
of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the 
belly, which are carried from the womb : and even to your 
old age I am He : and even to hoar hairs will I carry you : 

I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will 
deliver you ” (Isa. xlvi. 3, 4). 

“ O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou 
knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou under- 
standest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path 
and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou 
knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and 
before, and laid thine hand upon me ” (Ps. cxxxix. 1-5). 

All our lives long God has been caring for us, but 
how little we have appreciated His care! If the old 
lady in our story had ever found out what she owed to 
her young friend, would she not, think you, have been 
sorely grieved that she had not better appreciated his 
services, and had failed to thank him as he deserved? 

H 




EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


114 


And shall not we one day have to feel the same grief 
towards our hidden God ? 

“ Yet thou, in thy manifold mercies, forsookest them not 
in the wilderness : the pillar of the cloud departed not from 
them by day, to lead them in the way ; neither the pillar of 
fire by night, to show them light, and the way wherein they 
should go” (Neh. ix. 19). 

“For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his 
God, of the Lord of hosts ; though their land was filled with 
sin against the Holy One of Israel” (Jer. li. 5). 

Even though their land was “ filled with sin against 
the Holy One of Israel,” still He did not forsake them. 
Through all the time of Israel’s backsliding, although 
often unable because of the hardness of their hearts to 
manifest Himself, yet still He was with them, their 
hidden Caretaker and Protector. The book of Esther 
is a striking exemplification of this. The name Esther 
means secret or hidden, and the whole book is a story 
of the hidden presence of God in the midst of His 
people, at a time when their backsliding had so blinded 
their eyes, that they could not see Him. Not once in 
the whole book is the name of God mentioned, and 
yet His overruling care and guidance were never 
more manifest than in the events here recorded. The 
children of Israel seemed, as far as appears, to have 
forgotten God, and to have left Him out of all their 
thoughts; and to them, no doubt, it must have seemed 
as if He had likewise forgotten them. But behind all 
their neglect of Him, and His seeming forgetfulness of 
them, He held the reins of His providence, and by a 
series of apparently natural events, and by most un¬ 
likely means, using a drunken king, a deceiving woman, 



THE HIDDEN GOD. 


IX S 

a sleepless night, an upstart servant, and a malicious 
enemy as links in the chain, He brought to pass His 
will concerning them, and saved them in the time of 
their need. And just so He does continually now for 
His people, watching over them the most tenderly at the 
very moments when He seems the most hidden. And 
this is the case even when the hiding has been caused 
by our own unfaithfulness or backsliding. We may for¬ 
sake Him, but He never forsakes us, no matter how 
much it may seem as if He had. • 

It seems to me that it is the greatest infidelity to say 
of God, when He is hidden from our sight, that He has 
forsaken us. The simple truth is that He could no 
more forsake us than a loving mother could forsake her 
child. I remember once a theologian was arguing the 
matter out with me, and undertook to assert that there 
were sins for which even a mother would forsake her 
child; and I can feel to this day the tempest of mother 
love and indignation that tore my heart, as I burst into 
tears, and with difficulty restrained myself from order¬ 
ing him out of my presence at once! And if I, a poor 
failing human mother, could feel so, how much more 
must the Heavenly Father feel, who made the mother- 
heart in me, and who has declared Himself to be a 
“ God of love ! ” 

“ And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power 
is given unto me in heaven and in earth. ,Go ye therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
the world. Amen” (Matt, xxviii. 18-20). 




ii6 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION . 


“ Have not I commanded thee ? Be strong and of a 
good courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed : 
for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest ” 
(Josh. i. 9). 

Statements such as these might be multiplied indefi¬ 
nitely, for the Bible is simply full of them. And I do 
not myself see how any child of God can dare, in the 
face of them, even so much as to suggest that God has 
forsaken him. It is simply an impossibility; and the 
only thing^o do is to recognise that it is impossible, 
and never to admit the idea again. 

The story of Joseph gives us a very striking illustration 
of the hidden workings of God. Nothing could seem 
more like having been forsaken of God than the long 
series of misfortunes that befell Joseph, beginning with 
the cruelty of his brethren, and ending with being for¬ 
gotten in prison. There was no sign or token in it all 
of anything but the wickedness and malice of men. 
And yet, when Joseph was trying in after years to com¬ 
fort the hearts of his brethren, upon whom remorse had 
seized, he could say, “Now, therefore, be not grieved 
nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for 
God did send me before you to preserve life.’ , And 
again, “ But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but 
God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this 
day, to save much people alive.” The Psalmist also, in 
recapitulating many years afterward the story of Israel, 
said concerning these events, “He sent a man before 
them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant.” It 
certainly looked to the eye of sense, as if the selling of 
Joseph into Egypt was man’s wickedness only. But 
the hidden God was at work behind all the wickedness 



THE HIDDEN GOD. 


n 7 


and malice of men, using, as He so often does, the 
wrath of man to accomplish His purposes. Wicked 
men were, it is true, the actual agents, but God was the 
real sender. Moreover, in the very places where Joseph 
seemed to be the most forsaken, in the house of slavery, 
and the prison of disgrace, right there, we are told, God 
was with him and blessed him. (See Gen. xxxix.) 

If ever any human being would seem to have been 
justified in thinking God had forsaken him, surely 
Joseph would. But from all that appears his faith 
throughout was steadfast, and no doubting thought 
seems ever to have entered his heart. 

Not so with Jacob. In his times of darkness it is 
evident that his heart was filled with doubts. 

“Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My 
way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over 
from my God ? Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, 
that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends 
of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no 
searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the 
faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth 
strength” (Isa. xl. 27-29). 

When we say with Jacob, “ My way is hid from the 
Lord,” it is because we do not know God. He is hidden 
from us, and we think He is therefore absent; we do 
not see Him, and we think He does not see us. Like 
a child in delirium, that cannot see its mother, although 
she is holding it tenderly in her arms, and that calls out 
in despair, “ O mother, mother, come! ” so we in the 
delirium of our unbelief call out, “ How long wilt thou 
forget me, O Lord? For ever? How long wilt thou 
hide thy face from me?” while all the time His 



118 E VERY-DA Y RELIGION. 


arms are underneath us, and His love environs us on 
every side. 

“ If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the 
night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not 
from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness 
and the light are both alike to thee ” (Ps. cxxxix. II, 12). 

God may be hidden from us, but we can never be 
hidden from Him. There is a scene in the life of 
Elisha that illustrates this. The King of Syria was 
warring against Israel, but his designs were continually 
frustrated by Elisha. At last he determined to take 
Elisha captive, and sent an army to surround the pro¬ 
phet’s own city. I will let the Bible tell the rest of 
the story. 

“ And when the servant of the man of God was risen 
early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city 
both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto 
him, Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? And he answered, 
Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that 
be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray 
thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord 
opened the eyes of the young man ; and he saw: and, 
behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire 
round about Elisha” (2 Kings vi. 15-17). 

Were our eyes but opened, as were the eyes of this 
young man, we too should see, in every time of trial or 
danger, the mountains round about us full of the horses 
and chariots of God ! 

“And, behold, two of them went that same day to a 
village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about 
threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these 
things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, 



THE HIDDEN GOD. 


1 19 


while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Him¬ 
self drew near, and went with them. But their eyes 
were holden that they should not know Him ” (Luke xxiv. 
13-16). 

Now as then it often happens that the Lord is walking 
with His people, as He did with the two disciples on 
their way to Emmaus, and like them, we do not know 
Him. We need to have our eyes opened that we may 
see Him. These disciples saw with their bodily eyes, 
but we are to see with our spiritual eyes. Our seeing 
is to be by believing. Faith is the soul's eyesight. The 
word “ see ” is used not only of the sense of vision by 
which we perceive external objects, but also of that 
inward perception which gives us a certain knowledge 
of spiritual things. We say, for instance, of a mathe¬ 
matical problem, “ I see it,” meaning, not that our 
outward eyes see it worked out on a blackboard, but 
that our inward perception grasps it as an ascertained 
fact. It is in this sense that we shall come to see Him 
who is invisible, not with our outward eyes, but with 
the inward eye of our deepest perceptions. In other 
words, if we would discover the hidden God, we must 
simply believe, in spite of every “seeming” to the 
contrary, that He is with us and is watching over us and 
caring for us every minute of the time. Though we see 
Him not, we must believe He is there, and, so believing, 
we shall surely “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full 
of glory! ” 

“ Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now 
ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy u speak- 
able and full of glory : receiving the end of your faith, even 
the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter i. 8, 9). 



120 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


“ My child went forth into my garden-fair, 

Having no wish nor will to stay by me ; 

But that I patiently had followed him out there 
He could not see. 

He passed on from the garden to the wild, 

Where cruel and fierce-roaring monsters lie ; 

I drove them back, but nothing tofi 3 the child 
That it was I. 

He saw his brothers toiling on the road, 

* I will give life and strength for them,’ cried he 
But that I made him strong to lift their load 
He did not see. 

Soul-thrilling words of love bade him rejoice, 

And filled with music all that desert place; 

And yet he never knew it was my voice, 

Nor saw my face. 

And when the night came and his eyes grew dim, 
And dark and chill the mists about him lay, 

He did not know my hand was guiding him, 

Till it was day. 5 ’ 




LESSON XI. 

NO THING VERSUS ALL THINGS. 

Foundation Text :—“ Having nothing, and yet possessing all 
things.”—2 Cor. vi. io. 

The Apostle Paul gives us this paradox as one of the 
foundation principles of the Christian life: having 
nothing, or, as it may be translated, no thing, and yet 
possessing all things. It is a saying of the deepest 
significance, for it strikes a blow at the whole fabric of 
the ordinary Christian life. The ambition of most 
Christians, so far from being an ambition to have nothing, 
is, on the contrary, an ambition to have a vast number 
of things; and their energies are all wasted in the vain 
effort to get possession of these things. Some strive to 
get possession of certain “ experiences; ” some seek after 
“ecstatic feelings;” some try to make themselves rich in 
theological “views” and “dogmas;” some store up a 
long list of works done and results achieved ; some seek 
to acquire “illuminations,” or to accumulate “gifts”and 
“graces.” In short, all Christians, almost without 
exception, seek to possess a store of something or other, 
which they fancy will serve to recommend them to God, 
and make them worthy of His love and care. Could we 
but understand clearly the meaning of Paul’s words, 
“ having nothing, yet possessing all things,” all this would 

Z2I 


122 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


be at an end. For we would see that the one thing God 
wants of us is that we should empty ourselves of all our 
own things, in order that we may be brought to depend 
on Him for everything; we should discover that His 
purpose is to bring us to the place where we have nothing 
apart from Himself. 

“And the Lord spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no 
inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part 
among them : I am thy part and thine inheritance among 
the children of Israel” (Num xviii. 20). 

“ But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheri¬ 
tance : the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as He 
said unto them” (Josh. xiii. 33). 

“ I am thine inheritance ! ” What an amazing saying ! 
No wonder the Levites were content to go without any 
other possessions ! Having nothing, they truly possessed 
all things, for God was their possession! How slow we 
are to see that this is our privilege now, just as really as 
it was that of the Levites in those days of old. Apart 
from Christ we, in fact, have nothing; for moth and rust 
are sure to corrupt, and thieves to break through and 
steal all merely human possessions. But if God is ours, 
then all things are eternally ours, for what belongs to 
God must of necessity belong to us also, according to 
our need and our measure. 

“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him 
up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us 
all things” (Rom. viii. 32). 

“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly 
places in Christ ” (Eph. i. 3). 

It is here declared that all things have been given to 




NO THING VERSUS ALL THINGS . 


123 


us freely in Christ, but as a matter of fact we may not 
yet ourselves have taken possession of all. When our 
hands are full of our own things, we cannot possibly get 
possession of the things of God. Only empty hands can 
grasp a gift, only empty vessels can receive the filling; 
and only the heart that is emptied of all its own things 
can receive the “ all things ” of God. I mean, for instance, 
that if Christians are enjoying very ecstatic “ experiences ” 
they cannot help resting in them, and will feel no need 
to find their rest in God alone. Therefore it is that God 
finds it so often necessary to take away all our own 
things, and to leave us empty and bereft of all that we 
have most valued. He dries up our “fervours,” He 
deadens our “feelings;” He spoils our “experiences;” 
He confuses our “views,” He clouds our “illumina¬ 
tions ; ” and so brings us at last to the place where, 
having nothing of our own, we are driven to find our 
rest in the “ all things ” of God. I believe this is the 
explanation of the dark and perplexing dispensations 
through which many of God’s children are called to pass, 
when they seem to have lost all the joy and clearness of 
their earlier experiences, and to have been plunged into 
a fog of darkness and distress. Did they but understand 
it, they would give God thanks that, in His tender love, 
He is thus depriving them of all their own possessions; 
since it is only so that He can bring them safely and 
surely to the place where they will be content to possess 
Himself alone. “Having nothing,” they will at last 
“ possess all things.” 

The Bible exhorts us not to glory in our wisdom, or 
our might, or our riches, even though we may be 
possessed of all three; but, “let him that glorieth, 



124 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth the 
Lord.” 

Have we any of us ever come to the place where we 
have honestly ceased to glory in our own possessions? 
Never, I believe, until we have been deprived of them. 
Human nature is so constituted that while it possesses 
anything, it can hardly help glorying in it. As long, for 
instance, as a Christian feels wise or strong or rich in 
spiritual things, that Christian will almost inevitably 
glory in his strength, or his wisdom, or his riches. But if 
these are taken away from him, he will be driven to glory 
in the Lord alone, simply because there will be nothing 
else for him to glory in. 

“ Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and 
he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, 
buy wine and milk without money and without price. Where¬ 
fore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? and 
your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently, 
unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul 
delight itself in fatness” (Isa. lv. I, 2). 

The sharp contrast here drawn between our things and 
God’s things is very striking. Our things all partake of 
the nature of “that which is not bread ” and “that which 
satisfieth not.” They are of the earth, earthy; and 
consequently cannot, in the very nature of things, satisfy 
the spirit that is from heaven. 

“ Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that 
meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of 
man shall give unto you, for Him hath God the Father 
sealed” (John vi. 27). 

Everything that can perish belongs to the sphere of 
earthly things. Experiences perish, feelings perish, views 



NO THING VERSUS ALL THINGS. 


125 


perish, doctrines perish; the Apostle tells us that 
prophecies fail, and tongues cease, and knowledge 
vanishes away. It is impossible, therefore, that any of 
these perishable things, no matter how good of their 
kind they may be, could really satisfy the imperishable 
spirit. But while we labour for and hold on to the 
perishable things, we shall have no energy to seek after, 
nor room to hold the “ meat which endureth unto ever¬ 
lasting life.” 

I do not mean by this that the soul ought not to have 
any experiences, or views, or doctrines, or knowledge, 
or strength. Paul had all these in greater measure, I 
suppose, than any one else ever had, and yet he could 
declare that he had “nothing.” What he meant was 
that he had nothing apart from Christ, but that he had 
all things in Christ That is, Christ was his strength 
and wisdom and righteousness, and in himself he had 
nothing. I know this is a little difficult to explain. 
The illustration that helps me the most, though even this 
is not perfect, is that of the steam working through the 
machinery. The machinery has no power of its own, 
but all its power is derived from the steam that works 
through it and by it. Gould the machinery speak, its 
language would be similar to Paul’s, “having nothing, 
and yet possessing all things.” 

“ For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to 
do of His good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13). 

“ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to 
confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things 
of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and 
base things of the world, and things which are despised, 
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring 




126 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


to nought things that are ; that no flesh should glory in His 
presence ; but of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is 
made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption : that, according as it is written, He that 
glorifieth, let him glory in the Lord” (i Cor. i. 27-31). 

We must lay aside our own wisdom and righteousness 
in order that Christ may be made wisdom and righteous¬ 
ness and sanctification unto us. Practically, this means, 
that if I want righteousness of any kind I must not try to 
get a store of it laid up within myself, but must draw my 
supplies of righteousness moment by moment from the 
Lord, as I need it. I remember once when I felt the 
need of a great stock of patience to meet an emergency 
that was coming upon me, and thought I would be 
obliged to pray for a long time in order to lay up enough. 

I think I expected to have something after the nature of a 
package of patience, done up and labelled “Patience,” 
and deposited in my heart. It was one night, and I 
was preparing myself to pray all night long in order to 
lay in a good supply, when suddenly this verse flashed 
into my mind, “ Who of God is made unto us wisdom, 
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” 
“Yes,” I added with a sudden illumination, “and 
patience too ! I do not need to lay up a stock of patience; 
all the patience I need is stored up for me in Christ, and 
I have only to draw my supplies momentarily from Him.” 
I rose from my knees at once, and thanked the Lord 
beforehand for the unlimited supply of patience that I 
saw was mine in Christ. And I need not say that I 
found grace (in the form of patience) to help in every 
time of need. 

Does not common-sense tell us that, if we may thus 





NO THING VERSUS ALL THINGS. 


12 7 


have the “ all things ” of God, it is the height of folly to 
want to keep our own things, poor and good for nothing, 
as they necessarily are ? Was it not simple good common- 
sense on Paul’s part to count all things but loss com¬ 
pared to the excellency of the knowledge of Christ ? 

“ But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss 
for Christ Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss 
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my 
Lord : for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and 
do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Phil, 
iii. 7, 8). 

The loss of all things meant to Paul the gain of all 
things. The loss of the nest to the young eaglet, who is 
just learning to fly, means the gain of the whole heavens 
for its home. The loss of our own strength means the 
gaining of God’s strength in its place ; the loss of our 
own wisdom means the gaining of God’s wisdom; the 
loss of our own life means the gaining of God’s life. 
Who would not make the exchange? 

“ There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing : 
there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches” 
(Prov. xiii. 7). 

To which of these two classes do we belong ? Are we 
seeking to make ourselves rich, or are we content to be 
poor and possess nothing ? I used to have a friend who 
talked a great deal about what she called the “ stripping 
chamber.” She was one of those who are continually 
trying to “make themselves rich” by seeking after 
“ experiences ” and “ blessings,” and she could not seem 
to understand why the Lord found it necessary so con¬ 
tinually to strip her of all that she had gained. An old 




128 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


writer, in a little book called “ The Saint’s Travel to the 
Land of Canaan,” thus describes this stripping process : 

“God in these days is discovering the false cover¬ 
ings of creatures, and so stripping them naked. He 
is bringing men to see the great mystery of self in all 
its supposed glory. He is annihilating creatures, and 
bringing them to a spiritual death. He is laying low 
mountains, and is unbottoming creatures from their 
false rests. Men’s lofty looks He is abasing; yea, He 
is bringing men, who have been as it were Stars, and of 
great account in their own and in others’ eyes, even to a 
loss and silence, confusion and darkness; so that now 
their light seems to be darkness, their wisdom folly, 
their life death; and their enlargements and self-actings 
are hedged up, and they cannot find out any of their 
former paths. And all this is that the creature may be 
brought to depend on the Creator, and have nothing 
apart from Him.” 

I believe many will realise that they have been taken 
at times into this same “stripping chamber,” and have 
known something of this stripping work of God. Perhaps 
hitherto it may have frightened and perplexed them; 
but, henceforth, if they only understand it aright, they 
will rejoice at every stripping that deprives them of their 
own things, and that brings them to the place where, 
having nothing of their own, they can possess all things 
in God. 

“ And it shall be unto them for an inheritance: I am 
their inheritance : and ye shall give them no possession in 
Israel: I am their possession” (Ezek. xliv. 28). 

Contrast the “no possession” here with the “I am 



NO THING VERSUS ALL THINGS. 


129 


their possession,” and we shall get a faint glimpse perhaps 
of^ what it means to have nothing, and yet possess all 
things. 

“ So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh 
not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 
xiv - 33 ). 

“Then answered Peter and said unto Him, Behold we 
have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have 
therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto 
y° u , That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration 
when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, 
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, 
or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an 
hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matt, xix 
27-29). 

All that we have, whether outward or inward, must 
be “forsaken,” if we would receive the hundredfold of 
God. Forsaken, not in the sense of literally getting 
rid of everything, but in the sense of having everything 
only in and from the Lord. The real facts of the 
case are, that only God knows how to take care of 
things as they ought to be taken care of, and He alone 
is able to do it; therefore the common-sense of the 
matter is that nothing is really safe until it is handed 
over to His care. The most unsafe person in the universe 
to have charge of my things is myself; and never do I 
possess them so firmly as when I have transferred them 
over into the hands of God, and have left them in His 
charge. Never am I so sure of my money as when I have 
transferred it out of my unsafe pockets into the safe 
custody of a trustworthy bank; and the same thing is 



130 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


true as regards the abandonment of all I possess into the 
custody of God. It may be considered a very pious 
thing to do this, but it certainly is only good common- 
sense as well. 

“ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new crea¬ 
ture : old things are passed away ; behold, all things are 
become new. And all things are of God, who hath recon¬ 
ciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the 
ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. v. 17, 18). 

The “old things,” here spoken of as “passing away,” 
are everything that belongs to the “old man” or the 
carnal or fleshly life; the old activities of the flesh, the 
old efforts to generate for self something in a religious 
way to recommend us to God, the old way of relying on 
« exercises ” and “ordinances” and “duties” of various 
kinds, to beget and feed the life of God in the soul. 
Those who have been born into the resurrection life must 
learn that none of these things are of any avail in the 
sphere upon which they have entered. Here all things 
must be of God; and the old things of the flesh must 
vanish to make room for the new things of God. 

“ Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments 
of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye 
subject to ordinances (touch not; taste not; handle not; 
which all are to perish with the using) ; after the command¬ 
ments and doctrines of men ? Which things have indeed 
a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglect¬ 
ing of the body ; not in any honour to the satisfying of the 
flesh. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things 
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of 
God. Set your affections on things above, not on things 
on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with 
Christ in God” (Col. ii. 20-23 i hi. 1-3). 





NO THING VERSUS ALL THINGS. 


13 


Our things, /.<?., our feelings, our experiences, our 
exercises of various sorts, seem often to have a “ show of 
wisdom,” and it is hard for us to count them as really 
nothing, and to say truly, when we seem to have so many 
things, that we have nothing. But anything that is what 
the Apostle calls “ rudiments of the world,” that is, any¬ 
thing that is wrought out by “ flesh ” in any way whatever, 
must always be “ nothing ” in the sight of God; and, as 
soon as we have learned to see things with His eyes, they 
will be nothing in our own sight also. The common- 
sense way in everything always is to get down to facts, 
and in this case the simple fact is that all our own pos¬ 
sessions of any kind whatsoever are literally and truly 
“ nothing,” and that, no matter how many we may have 
of them, we still must say with the Apostle, if we speak 
the truth, “having nothing.” 

“ For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain 
we can carry nothing out” (1 Tim. vi. 7). 

Whether we can go on and say further with the Apostle, 
“that although we have nothing, we yet possess all things,” 
depends upon how much we believe of the Scripture de¬ 
clarations that all things are ours in Christ. Not will be, 
notice, but are ours now. That is, precisely as what the 
mother has belongs to the child at its need, so what God 
has belongs to His children at their need, and only awaits 
their taking. 

“ According as His divine power hath given unto us all 
things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the 
knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue” 
(2 Peter i. 3). 



132 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


“ Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are 
yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, 
or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all 
are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” 
(i Cor. iii. 21-23). 

“ Lord, in thy Spirit’s hurricane, I pray, 

Strip my soul naked, dress it then thy way. 

Change for me all my rags to cloth of gold. 

Who would not poverty for riches yield ? 

A hovel sell to buy a treasure-field ? 

Who would a mess of porridge careful hold 
Against the universe’s birthright old ? ” 



LESSON XII. 

TAKING UP THE CROSS. 

Foundation Text -.—“Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If 
any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his 
cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: 
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”— Matt. 
xvi. 24, 25. 

A GREAT deal of misunderstanding exists in regard to this 
subject of “ taking up the cross.” Most people think it 
means doing the will of God under a feeling of great trial; 
giving up something that we very much want to keep, or 
performing some duty from which we exceedingly shrink. 
Consequently we often hear the expression used in refer¬ 
ence to some act of obedience to what is thought to be 
the will of God, “Well, I suppose I must take up my 
cross and do it; ” and the long face and accompanying 
sigh testify to how “ heavy ” this cross is felt to be. Now, 
I believe all this falls far short of what our Lord really 
meant when He said, “If any man will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow 
me.” It is inconceivable to me that He could have 
meant that doing the will of God was to be a hard yoke 
and a heavy burden to the child of God. In fact, He 
Himself declared exactly the opposite, when He said 
that His yoke was easy and His burden light. Taking 

up the cross, therefore, cannot mean that it is to be hard 
133 


134 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


to do God’s will; and I believe a careful study of the 
subject will show us that it has a far deeper and wider 
signification. 

As far as I can see, the cross in Scripture always 
means death. 

“And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled 
Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross” (Phil. ii. 8). 

“And that He might reconcile both unto God in one 
body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby” 
(Eph. ii. 16). 

The cross in connection with Christ always means the 
death of Christ. The only use of the cross is to put to 
death, not to keep alive. It may be a suffering death, 
but still it is sooner or later death. All through the 
Bible the meaning of the cross is simply and always 
death. In most cases this is manifest to every one; and 
why we have chosen to give it a different meaning in its 
mystical sense, and make it mean not death, but a living 
in misery, would be hard to explain. When, therefore, 
our Lord told His disciples that they could not be His 
disciples unless they took up the cross, He could not 
have meant that they were to find it hard to do His will; 
but He was, I believe, simply expressing in figurative 
language the fact that they were to be made partakers of 
His death and resurrection, by having their old man 
crucified with Him, and by living only in their new man, 
or, in other words, in the resurrection life of the Spirit. 

“ Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, 
that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we 
should not serve sin ” (Rom. vi. 6). 

“ But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross 



TAKING UP THE CROSS. 


135 


of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified 
unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither 
circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a 
new creature” (Gal. vi. 14, 15). 

Many people seem to think that the only thing pro¬ 
posed in religion is to improve the “old man,” /.<?., the 
flesh ; and that the way to do this is to discipline and 
punish it until it is compelled to behave. Hence comes 
the asceticism of the Buddhist and others; and hence, 
also, comes the idea that the “cross” for Christians 
consists in the painful struggles of this helpless “old 
man ” to do the will of God, a will which in the very 
nature of things the flesh cannot understand or love. 
But a true comprehension of the religion of Christ shows 
us that what is really meant is the death of this old man 
and the birth in us of a “new creature,” begotten of 
God, whose tastes and instincts are all in harmony with 
God, and to whom the doing of God’s will must be, and 
cannot help being, a joy and a delight. It is not the old 
man thwarted and made miserable, by being compelled 
to submit to a will it dislikes, but it is a new man, 
“created in Christ Jesus unto good works,” and there¬ 
fore doing these good works with ease and pleasure; a 
new nature, of divine origin, which is in harmony with 
the divine will, and therefore delights to do it. 

“ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new crea¬ 
ture : old things are passed away; behold, all things are 
become new. And all things are of God ” (2 Cor. v. 1 7, 
18 ; also Eph. iv. 22—24). 

The “new creature” does not mean a new body, of 
a new intellect, but a new spirit, a new life. It means 
that the man who has become a new creature has had 





i 3 6 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION . 


implanted within him the life principle of a new and 
spiritual nature, the life and nature of God. He is 
made a “ partaker of the Divine nature.” It is not his 
old fleshly nature made better, but a new and higher 
nature introduced; a nature belonging to a higher order 
of being. It is a life born of the Spirit, in contra¬ 
distinction to the life born of the flesh. 

“ That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which 
is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John iii. 6). 

“ And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a 
living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 
Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The 
first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the 
Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also 
that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also 
that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of 
the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly ” 
(i Cor. xv. 45-49). 

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and never can 
be anything else, no matter how much we discipline it. 
The only way to treat it is to nail it to the cross; or, 
in other words, put it to death; not keep it alive to 
make it suffer, but crucify it, that is, kill it, and let it be 
to us as a dead and buried thing. 

“ And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with 
the affections and lusts” (Gal. iv. 24). 

To crucify, means to put to death, not to keep alive 
in misery. But so obscured has the whole subject be¬ 
come to the children of God, that I believe a great 
many feel as if they were crucifying self when they are 
simply seating self on a pinnacle, and are tormenting it 



TAKING UP THE CROSS. 


137 


and making it miserable. Man will undergo the most 
painful self-sacrifices, and call it “taking up the cross,” 
and will find great satisfaction in it; and all the time 
will fail to understand that the true cross consists in 
counting the flesh, or the “ old man,” as an utterly 
worthless thing, fit only to be put to death. There is 
a subtle enjoyment in torturing the outward self, if only 
the interior self-life may be fed thereby. A man will 
make himself a fakir, if it is only self that does it, so 
that self can share in the glory. The flesh of man likes 
to have some credit; it cannot bear to be counted as 
dead and therefore ignored; and in all religions of 
legality it has a chance. This explains, I am sure, why 
there is so much legality among Christians. But did 
we read the Scriptures aright, we should see that the 
carnal mind, /.<?., the fleshly mind (as it is literally trans¬ 
lated), cannot serve God nor enter into His kingdom, 
no matter how much we may try, by all sorts of asceti¬ 
cism, to make it fit. 

“ For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of 
the flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit the things of 
the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death ; but to be 
spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal 
mind is enmity against God : for it is not subject to the law 
of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in 
the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. viii. 5-8). 

When the Apostle says here that they that are “in the 
flesh ” cannot please God, it is manifest he cannot mean, 
that they that are in the body cannot please God, for it 
is to people in the body that all his exhortations are 
addressed. The “ flesh ” here, therefore, must mean the 
lower nature in man, that part of his nature that is 



EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


138 

called “the carnal mind, or the old Adam.” It is the 
part of man’s being that must die in order that the “ new 
man ” or the spiritual nature may be born. If a cater¬ 
pillar is to become a butterfly, the only way is for the 
caterpillar life to die in order that the butterfly life may 
be evolved. And just as the caterpillar cannot live the 
butterfly life, so also the “flesh” or “carnal nature” in 
us cannot live the spiritual life. It is in this sense that 
Paul says he is crucified with Christ. 

“ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live ; yet not 
I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in 
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
me, and gave Himself for me ” (Gal. ii. 20). 

“ But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified 
unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. vi. 14). 

By being “crucified to the world” Paul meant that 
he was dead to it. He did not mean that he was still 
alive to it, and was being made to suffer because he 
must give it up, but that he was absolutely dead to it, 
so that it no longer had any attractions for him. To be 
dead to a thing must mean that that thing has no power 
to attract. And this is what is meant in the Bible by 
“ taking up the cross.” It is to become so dead to the 
world (that is, the low^er plane of living) that its power 
to tempt is gone. It is to have our affections so set on 
things above, that merely earthly things have lost their 
charm. 

“ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which 
are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the 




TAKING UP THE CROSS. 


139 


earih. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in 
God” (Col. iii. 1-3). 

To have our “ affections set ” on anything must mean 
that we love that thing; and if our affections are set on 
the will of God, we must love His will. It is impossible 
that God’s will should seem hard to a man whose 
affections are set on it. It may be accompanied with 
hard things, but in itself it must be a delight. Our Lord 
could say, “ I delight to do thy will, O my God ! ” 
because He was dead to everything that was contrary 
to His Father’s will. His affections were set on the will 
of God; and until our affections are similarly so set on 
the will of God as to delight in it, we have not “taken 
up the cross ” in the Scripture sense at all. 

A good illustration of what I mean would be the 
change that takes place in the feelings of a little girl 
when she becomes a woman. As a child she loved to 
roll hoops, and climb trees, and make mud pies; and 
she hated to sit still and sew, or to learn long lessons, 
or to do hard work. To have been compelled to give 
up the one or to do the other, while still a child, would 
have been a bitter trial. But when the little girl becomes 
a woman, everything is reversed, and she loves the things 
she once hated, and hates the things she once loved. 
The woman “ takes up the cross ” to her childish plays; 
that is, she becomes dead to them, and no longer finds 
any pleasure in them. She delights in the pursuits of 
maturity and scorns the pursuits of childhood, just as 
once she delighted in the pursuits of childhood and 
scorned those of maturity. 

I fear there are a great many Christians who look upon 
the Christian life, as I in my childish ignorance looked 



140 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


upon grown-up life. I thought that grown-up people 
wanted to play as much as I did, but that there was 
a law forbidding it after a certain age; and I pitied with 
all my heart everybody who had passed that age, which, 
somehow, I fixed in my mind at fifteen, and dreaded 
beyond measure the time when I should reach that age 
myself, and should have to “take up the cross” that 
awaited me there. In the same way I believe many 
Christians think religion means always to give up the 
things they love, and to do the things they hate; and 
they call this “ taking up the cross,” and actually think 
God enjoys this “ grudging ” service. 

“ Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so 
let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God 
loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. ix. 7). 

To my mind, grudging service is no more acceptable 
to God from us than it would be to us from one another; 
and such an idea of the “ cross ” as this, seems to me 
a very poor and low substitute for the glorious truth 
of our death with Christ, and our resurrection into 
the triumphant spiritual life hid with Christ in God. 
Surely, if we are born of God, we must love the things 
God loves, and hate the things He hates ; and if we are 
one with Christ, it is out of the question that we should 
chafe against His will or find His service hard ! Is it 
a sign of the highest sort of union between a husband 
and wife when the one finds it a great trial to please the 
other? Ought it not rather to be a joy to do so? And 
how much more is this true as regards our relations to 
Christ ? 

“ Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord 



TAKING UP THE CROSS. 


141 


Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in 
our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death 
for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made 
manifest in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. iv. 10, 11). 

Dying and death are very definite words, and can 
only mean that that which is said to be “ crucified,” and 
is therefore called dead, must be in a condition spiritu¬ 
ally analogous to what death is physically, /.<?., without 
life, or feeling, or capacity to suffer. Therefore, to such 
the doing of God’s will cannot cause suffering, for the 
simple reason that that part of their being which dis¬ 
likes God’s will and shrinks from doing it, is dead, and 
only that part is alive that loves God’s will and delights 
to do it 

“ Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed 
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye 
should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your 
members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin : but 
yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the 
dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness 
unto God” (Rom. vi. 11—13). 

“Reckoning ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin” 
is only another expression for “ taking up our cross and 
denying ourselves.” It simply means that we are to 
look upon ourselves as dead to the things of the flesh 
that once attracted us, and as alive only to the higher 
things of God. Or, in other words, we are to live in the 
higher part of our nature instead of in the lower. There 
are always two attitudes of mind towards anything, 
between which we may choose. Either we may take 
hold of things on the plane of flesh, or we may take 



142 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


hold of them on the plane of spirit; and it is to do the 
latter that the Apostle exhorts us when he tells us to 
reckon ourselves “ alive unto God.” 

“ And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all 
principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised 
with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off 
the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of 
Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, 
who hath raised Him from the dead” (Col. ii. 10-12). 

Certainly a thing that is “ buried ” cannot be at the 
same time alive to suffering. Paul’s whole argument in 
the sixth of Romans is founded on this. 

“ What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in sin, that 
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are 
dead to sin, live any longer therein ? Know ye not, that so 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by 
baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from 
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should 
walk in newness of life ” (Rom. vi. 1-4). 

He does not say we ought not to sin, which might 
imply that secretly we wanted to, but were restrained by 
certain considerations ; but he says, “ we are dead to 
sin, and therefore we cannot sin,” i.e. t we do not want to. 
This, I think, is what John means in that passage in his 
Epistle which some find so difficult. 

“ Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for 
His seed remaineth in him : and he cannot sin, because 
he is born of God” (1 John iii. 9). 

That part of us which is born of God, the spiritual 



TAKING UP THE CROSS. 


143 


man in us, cannot sin, because it is holy in its very 
nature or essence. If we sin, therefore, it must be 
because we have permitted that in us which is born of 
the flesh to have some life; and have submitted our¬ 
selves, i.e., our personality, more or less to its control 
And not only would I say this concerning sin, but I 
would also say it concerning that shrinking from and 
dislike of God’s will which so many Christians think 
constitutes the cross. The spiritual man in us cannot 
dislike God’s will, for in the very nature of things that 
which is born of God must love the will of God. That 
which shrinks therefore and suffers, must be the self-life; 
and the self-life we are commanded to crucify and deny 
(Mark viii. 34, 35). 

To deny anything means that you do not recognise 
its existence. To deny ourselves therefore does not 
mean to keep self alive, and let it be made miserable by 
forcing it to do God’s will; but it means to deny the very 
existence of self, and to live only in that part of our 
nature that loves God’s will and delights to do it. We 
can see what the Scriptures mean by denying, if we 
refer to the story of Peter (see Matt. xxvi. 34, 35 ; 

69-75)- 

Peter simply said, “ I know not the man,” and this 
was denying Christ. And similarly if we would deny 
self, we must say to self, “ I do not know you.” Fenelon 
tells us that the true self-denial consists in looking upon 
this “ I,” of whom we are all so fond, as a stranger in 
whom we take no interest. “ I do not know you,” we 
must say. “You may be the most interesting or the 
most ill-used person in the world, but you need not 
bring your tales to me, for you are a stranger to me, 



144 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


and I take no interest in you.” If any one objects that 
it is not possible to lose all interest in self after this 
fashion, I would ask them, if they have never known what 
it was to be so overmastered by some strong emotion 
of love, or of joy, or of sorrow, as to forget and deny 
self utterly, and not even to notice what happens to it ? 
We say at such times, “I entirely forgot myself,” and 
what is this but to deny self in the most effectual sort 
of way ? 

“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, 
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s 
sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. 
xii. 10). 

The Apostle did not look upon his trials as a heavy 
“ cross,” hard to be borne, but he “ took pleasure ” in 
them. He had so effectually taken up the true cross 
by which he was “ crucified to the world,” as to delight 
in the will of God, even when it involved trials and 
persecutions, and distresses and necessities. 

The true lover takes pleasure in suffering, if needs 
be, for the one he loves; and if we love our Lord, it is 
not anything very mystical for us to “take pleasure” in 
suffering endured for His sake. 

This seems to me simple common-sense; and although 
we may not all have attained to it, yet it is of the utmost 
importance that we should not hinder our advance 
thitherward by cherishing false notions of what we are 
called to as children of God, and by degrading the grand 
Scripture idea of denying ourselves and taking up our 
cross, to the poor paltry fact of being compelled to give 
up things we love, and to do things we dislike. If 




TAKING UP THE CROSS. 


145 


things are wrong we ought to hate them, and want to 
give them up; and if duties are right, we ought to love 
them, and delight to do them.* And we shall do this, 
if we have truly “ taken up our cross,” and are indeed 
“crucified with Christ.” 

I know these expressions, “crucified with Christ,” 
and “ dead to sin,” are looked upon as being very mys¬ 
terious and occult; and simple-minded Christians think 
they describe experiences that but few can comprehend 
or attain to. But whatever mystical meaning they may 
have, there is a practical common-sense meaning as well, 
that the most simple-minded can understand. They 
mean just what is meant by the ordinary expression of 
being “dead” to anything. For instance, I suppose 
all my readers are “dead” to stealing or murder; that 
is, they do not want to commit either of these crimes. 
They are “crucified to the world” as regards these 
sins, and no doubt as regards many others. They have 
“taken up the cross” to them. Now, there is nothing 
mysterious or occult in this common experience, and it 
will serve as a sample of what the Bible means when it 
tells us we must “ take up the cross ” and be “ crucified 
with Christ.” It means simply this, that, just as now 
we have “taken up the cross” to some of the things 
that are contrary to the will of God, and are “dead” 
to them, so must we henceforth “take up the cross,” 
and be “dead” to all that is opposed to His will 


K 



LESSON XIII. 

THE LAW OF FAITH. 

Foundation Text :—“ Where is boasting then ? It is excluded. 
By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.”— 
Rom. iii. 27. 

In considering this text not long ago, it dawned upon 
me that the expression, the “law of faith,” must have a 
deeper meaning than is sometimes given to it. The 
word “ law ” emphasised itself to my mind, and I saw it 
could not mean only the fact of faith, or the results of 
faith; but that it must also mean the law by which faith 
works, its inherent nature as it were, or its mode of 
action. We speak of the law of gravitation, or the law 
of chemical affinities, and we mean something far more 
than the mere facts or phenomena of gravitation or 
chemical affinities. We mean the laws behind the facts, 
which govern the facts, and which are their mode of 
working. 

The law which lies behind the fact is, of course, the 
really potent thing. The fact of gravitation was a great 
discovery, but it would not have revolutionised the 
world as it has without the further discovery of its laws. 
Until these laws were discovered, the mighty force 
hidden in the fact of gravitation was comparatively 
worthless. It could not be applied. 

146 


THE LA W OF FAITH. 


147 


We have nothing here to do with the doctrines con¬ 
cerning faith. These are for theologians. But what 
we need is to get at the practical common-sense every¬ 
day laws of the spiritual life, that we may use them in 
our daily battle with the world. 

The progress of thought and investigation removes all 
things in the material world, sooner or later, out of the 
region of isolated and unexplained fact, into the region 
of ascertained and orderly law; the region where what¬ 
ever powers they may possess become capable of practical 
application. 

Something of this same progress of thought in regard 
to faith may be seen in the spiritual world. The facts 
of faith have been brought before Christians of late 
years with increasing prominence. We have had Faith 
Missions, and Faith Homes, and Faith Healing, and 
Faith Works in abundance, and the Church has gradually 
been learning that faith is a real and mighty spiritual 
force, which can accomplish things and control things in 
a way that cannot be accounted for except on the ground 
of some actual definite law of faith, that works with the 
irresistible and inevitable certainty of all law in every 
region of life. 

“And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made 
thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” 
(Mark v. 34). 

“And He said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith 
hath made thee whole” (Luke xvii. 19). 

And He said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; 
go in peace” (Luke vii. 50). 

“Then touched He their eyes, saying, According to your 
faith be it unto you ” (Matt. ix. 29). 

We are all familiar with these declarations of our Lord, 




148 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


and have all repeated many a time to ourselves and to 
others the magical words, “ According to your faith ’ it 
shall be unto you. But have we not looked upon them 
too much as magical words, involving a sort of continu¬ 
ous miracle, for which there was no law, and about 
which there could be no certainty? Has not the feeling 
concerning faith been more or less that it is a capricious, 
uncertain factor, which may work or may not, and upon 
which no real dependence can ever be placed? Has 
not the exercise of it been always somewhat of an experi¬ 
ment, even with the most devout souls ? And is not the 
wonder and admiration with which we regard a success¬ 
ful issue to its ventures, an indication that the truth has 
hardly yet dawned upon us of a “ law of faith,” about 
whose working there can be no experiment and no doubt ? 

“ Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto 
you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do 
this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto 
this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the 
sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye 
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive ” (Matt. xxi. 
21, 22). 

There is no experiment or doubt in the faith here 
described. It is an assertion of the most uncompromis¬ 
ing nature, that there is a “law of faith” which will 
inevitably work, wherever and whenever it is applied, 
and that not even mountains can withstand it. 

“And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard 
seed, ye might say unto this sycamine-tree, Be thou plucked 
up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea ; and it 
should obey you ” (Luke xvii. 6). 

“Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why 





THE LAW OF FAITH. 


149 


could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, 
Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye 
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this 
mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall 
remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you ” (Luke 
xvii. 20). 

All these astounding assertions are from the lips of 
our Lord Himself, and they must contain a deeper truth 
than any the Church has yet comprehended, or our 
achievements in the region of faith could not possibly 
be so few and meagre. I believe myself that Christ 
was here telling us of a mighty, irresistible, spiritual law, 
that is inherent in the nature of God, and that is shared, 
according to our measure,, by every one who is begotten 
of God, and is a partaker of His divine nature. Just as 
gravitation is a law of matter, inherent in matter, and 
absolutely unerring and unintermittent in its working, so 
is faith a law of spirit, inherent in spirit, and equally 
unerring and unintermittent in its working. When 
Christ says, therefore, that “nothing shall be impossible” 
to faith, He is not stating a marvellous fact only, but 
He is revealing a tremendous law. 

“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things 
are possible to him that believeth” (Mark ix. 23). 

We know that all things are possible to God, and 
here our Lord tells us that all things are possible to us . 
also, if we only believe. No assertion could be more . 
distinct or unmistakable. The great thing for us, there¬ 
fore, is to discover the law by which faith works, in order 
that we may know how to exercise this tremendous . 
spiritual force, that is declared by our Lord to be our 




150 


every-day religion . 


birthright, as being children of God, and partakers of 
His nature. 

First of all, then, let us consider what faith is not, that 
we may be better able to understand what it really is. 

By very many faith is considered to be a gracious 
disposition of the soul, wrought by the Holy Ghost m 
answer to wrestling prayer, which puts us in a fit condi¬ 
tion to receive favours from God. By others it is thought 
to be an acceptable frame of mind, that causes God to 
be pleased with us. Others look upon faith as though 
it were a sort of thing, received also in answer to wrest¬ 
ling prayer, a tangible reality of some kind, that can be 
seen and handled; a sort of spiritual commodity, done 
up, as it were, in packages, and labelled “ faith,” to be 
stowed away in the heart, ready for use, as a species of 
coin with which to buy God’s gifts, or an equivalent to 
induce Him to part with them. 

In all sorts of ways the subject of faith is often so 
mixed up with mystery, that a plain, common-sense way¬ 
faring man can make neither head nor tail of the matter 
in his every-day life. But the truth is that faith is 
simply neither more nor less than trust or confidence. 
We have faith in ourselves when we trust ourselves; we 
have faith in a friend when we trust that friend ; we 
have faith in a bank when we trust that bank. Faith in 
the Bible sense, therefore, is simply trust or confidence 
in God. Faith in man and faith in God are precisely 
the same thing in their nature; the difference consisting 
only in the different persons believed in. Faith in man 
links us on to and makes us one with mere humanity; 
faith in God links us on to and makes us one with 
divinity. 



THE LA W OF FAITH. 


I 5 i 


“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God 
is greater : for this is the witness of God which He hath 
testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God 
hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God 
hath made Him a liar ; because he believeth not the record 
that God gave of His Son” (1 John v. 9, 10). 

Faith, then, is not a thing to be seen, or touched, or 
handled. It is not a grace, nor a gracious disposition. 
It is nothing mysterious or perplexing. It is simply and 
only believing God. And to “exercise faith,” as it is 
called, one has only to exercise towards God the same 
believing faculty one exercises towards man. 

Neither are there different kinds of faith. Men talk 
about a feeling faith, and a living faith, and a saving 
faith, and an intellectual faith, and a historical faith, and 
a dead faith. But it is all a waste of words; for either 
I trust or I do not trust. If I trust, I have faith, and if 
I do not trust, I do not have faith, and that is all there 
is about it. 

There are two Scripture illustrations that seem to me 
to make it very plain what faith really is. 

“ Through faith we understand that the worlds were 
framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen 
were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. xi. 3). 

“As it is written, I have made thee a father of many 
nations, before Him whom he believed, even God, who 
quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not 
as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, 
that he might become the father of many nations, accord¬ 
ing to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And 
being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body 
now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, 
neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: he staggered 



152 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong 
in faith, giving glory to God ; and being fully persuaded 
that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. 
And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness” 
(Rom. iv. 17-22). 

The passage in Hebrews simply means that we know 
that the worlds were framed by the word of God, be¬ 
cause God says they were; and we believe Him, without 
requiring any other proof but His word. We were not 
there to see them so made, we do not know anybody 
who was; but God says it, and we believe Him; and 
this is faith. 

The passage in Romans is similar, only that it illustrates 
faith in regard to a future thing instead of a past thing. 
Abraham is the Scripture pattern of faith, continually 
pointed to as such all through the Bible. Now what did 
Abraham do? He simply believed God, when He told 
him He was going to give him a son. He had no out¬ 
ward proof of it, and no rational human hope, but 
“against hope, he believed in hope,” because God had 
said it, and he chose to believe God. And therefore, 
it is said of him, “Abraham believed God, and it was 
counted unto him for righteousness.” 

The “ law of faith ” appears, therefore, to consist simply 
in two things, namely, a conviction of God’s will, and a 
perfect confidence that that Will must necessarily be 
accomplished. There are two passages that seem to me 
to set forth very clearly and definitely the working of 
this law 

“And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, 
if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us : 
and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we 



THE LAW OF FAITH. 


153 


know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him ” 
(1 John v. 14, 15). 

“And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in 
God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say 
unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast 
into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall 
believe that those things which he saith shall come to 
pass ; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say 
unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, 
believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” 
(Mark xi. 22-24). 

Notice the process of faith, or in other words, the 
“law of faith,” as set forth in these passages. We are 
commanded to have the same sort of faith that God has. 
(See margin in Mark xi. 22.) Now 6od’s faith that 
what He desires will be accomplished, is of course abso¬ 
lute and unwavering. He knows it. And we are to 
know it also. Then we are to say so. 

“ For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and 
it stood fast” (Ps. xxxiii. 9). 

One passage says “ask,” and the other says “say.” 
I believe they are interchangeable words in this connec¬ 
tion, and that the prayer of faith is really a command of 
faith also. “ God spake and it was done,” and so are 
we also, who are begotten of Him, to speak, and it shall 
be done also. This is what it means when it says, 
“ Have the faith of God,” as the margin puts it. We 
are to have the same sort of faith that God has, accord¬ 
ing to our measure. Rom. iv. 17 describes the sort of 
faith God has. 

“ God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things 
which be not as though they were.” 



154 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION . 


God disregards all seemings, but, calling “ those things 
which be not as though they were,” He creates them by 
that very calling. How much of this creative power of 
faith we His children share, I am not prepared to say, 
but that we are called to share far more of it than we 
have ever yet laid hold of, I feel very sure. There are, 

I am convinced, many “mountains” in our lives and 
experiences, which might be overcome, had we only the 
courage of faith to say to them, “ Be thou removed,” 
accompanied with a calm assurance that they must 
surely go. 

The difficulty is that we neither “say” the word of 
faith, nor “pray” the prayer of faith. We say generally 
the word of doubt, and pray the prayer of experiment, 
and then we wonder why our faith and our prayers are 
so ineffectual. 

“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he 
that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the 
wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall 
receive anything of the Lord” (James i. 6, *]). 

It is of no use to fight against this inevitable law. As 
well might the architect try to work in opposition to the 
law of gravitation, and undertake to build his house from 
the top downwards, as for the Christian to try to accom¬ 
plish anything in the spiritual realm by means of doubt. 
It simply cannot be done; and the sooner Christians 
know this the better for them. How much can be done 
by faith, may remain an open question perhaps, but it 
is a settled matter for ever that nothing can be done by 
doubt. 





THE LAW OF FAITH. 


i55 


li But without faith it is impossible to please Him : for 
he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that 
He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” 
(Heb. xi. 6). 

Faith is, I believe, the vital principle of the spiritual 
life, just as truly as breath seems to be the vital principle 
of the bodily life; and we can no more live spiritually 
without faith than we can live our bodily life without 
breath. 

As to the limits of the power of faith, I am not, as I 
said above, prepared to speak. The Scriptures, it seems 
to me, put no limit whatever. Read the triumphant 
declaration concerning it in the eleventh chapter of 
Hebrews. There is scarcely any experience of human 
life that is not enumerated in one way or another in 
this magnificent record of faith’s achievements and faith’s 
victories. 

“ And what shall I more say ? for the time would fail 
me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of 
Jephthae ; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets : 
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous¬ 
ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the 
sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in 
fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women 
received their dead raised to life again : and others were 
tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain 
a better resurrection : and others had trial of cruel mock- 
ings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprison¬ 
ment : they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were 
tempted, were slain with the sword : they wandered about 
in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, 
tormented ; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they 




156 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and 
caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good 
report through faith, received not the promise : God having 
provided some better thing for us, that they without us 
should not be made perfect ” (Heb. xi. 32-40). 

These old worthies surely must have understood the 
“law of faith,” and must have known how to apply it, 
far better than we do of the present day. 

To them this “ law ” was a law that applied, not only 
to their religion, but to their life. They brought it into 
use, not only on fast days or feast days, but on ordinary 
week days as well. They applied it to every emergency. 
We of the present day make the mistake of limiting the 
working of this law to what we call the religious part of 
our life. And yet it is evident that the Bible, in teach¬ 
ing us to “live by faith,” must mean our daily living. 
We are to bring faith to bear upon all that concerns us, 
whether it is what we call spiritual or what we call tenir 
poral; and, in the earthly plane of things, as well as in 
the heavenly, we are to “ overcome by faith.” Let us 
make up our minds, then, to live by the “law of faith.” 
Let us bring it to bear on our household affairs, on our 
business enterprises, on our social duties, on all and 
everything, in short, that concerns us, whether it be 
inward or outward; and see whether we, too, may not 
“obtain a good report through faith,” and may not 
triumph, as these old worthies did, over every emer¬ 
gency and every need of our lives. 



LESSON XIV. 

THE LA W OF LIFE. 

Foundation Text •“ For the law of the Spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”— 
Rom. viii. 2. 

For the most part Christians live their spiritual lives 
in a very uncertain haphazard sort of way. They are 
all right on Sundays perhaps, or where the doctrines 
or services of their religion are concerned, but when it 
comes to their week-day living they are all at sea. They 
have no understanding of the “law of life" in its appli¬ 
cation to this commonplace side of their existence. 

In my last lesson on the “ law of faith ” I tried to put 
the emphasis on the word law, and to show that there 
is an actual definite “law of faith,” which works with the 
same irresistible certainty as the law of gravitation, or 
any other natural law. In the same way I desire now to 
treat the subject of life, emphasising again the word law. 

Is it not reasonable to suppose that there must be 
laws of the spiritual life just as there are laws of the 
natural life, and that the one must be as sure and 
dependable in their working as the others? Too often 
the Christian life is only a series of rather doubtful 
experiments, whose results are hoped for, but can never 
be depended upon with any sort of certainty. There 

*57 


i 5 » 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


seems to be but little conception in most minds that 
there is an ascertainable and dependable law of life, 
which, if discovered and understood, would remove our 
experience out of the region of doubtful chances into the 
region of assured certainties. 

“Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou 
shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance” (Acts 
ii. 28). 

The only way in which we can be made free from the 
“ law of sin and death,” is by the untrammelled action of 
the law of life; and therefore it is of vital importance 
that we should have made known to us the “ ways of 
life.” That is, we must try and discover the “ ways ” in 
which spiritual life works, how it is begotten, how it 
grows, how it is nourished, how it bears fruit, what is its 
power, and what ought to be its environment. 

First, then, let us consider how it is begotten: 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, hath be¬ 
gotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. i. 3). 

“ Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, 
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” 
(James i. 18). 

“ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John i. 13). 

Nothing could be more plainly stated. Our spiritual 
life is begotten of God, of “ His own will.” Therefore 
it has its source in Him, and derives its nature from 
Him. I am convinced very few of us realise this as a 
fact, else why is it that we struggle so hard to beget a 






THE LA W OF LIFE. 


59 


spiritual life in ourselves by our own self-efforts? We 
act often as if we were to be born “of the will of man,” 
and try, by wrestlings, and agonisings, and resolutions, 
and prayers, and religious “exercises” of all sorts, to 
bring about the “ new birth.” No wonder religion has 
become such a hard and apparently hopeless task to so 
many. Even on the natural plane, the creation of life 
is a blank impossibility, and how much more on the 
spiritual plane. The soul, therefore, that tries by its own 
self efforts to create spiritual life in itself, is attempting 
an impossible task, and can land itself nowhere but in 
despair. 

“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except 
a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh 
is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and 
whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit ” 
(John iii. 5-8). 

John alone, of all the Evangelists, records the sayings 
of our Lord, introduced by the words, “Verily, verily.” 
(There are twenty-four of these sayings in his Gospel, 
and they all of them develop the laws of the spiritual 
life.) This “verily, verily,” states the incontrovertible 
fact, that the only way into any form of life is to be born 
into it. Things grow in a life, but they cannot grow into 
it. The doorway into any plane of life is always by birth. 

“ Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of in¬ 
corruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth 
for ever” (1 Peter i. 23). 




i6o 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


“ For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels ; 
but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore 
in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His 
brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high 
priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation 
for the sins of the people” (Heb. ii. 16, 17). 

In thus taking upon Him the “seed of Abraham,” 
Christ linked Himself on to all humanity for ever. Con¬ 
sequently no human being can be born unlinked to 
Christ. He was the “ first begotten,” and in Him, as 
Head, all humanity has been begotten also. 

“ For since by man came death, by man came also the 
resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so 
in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. xv. 21, 22). 

“ Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 
The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is 
the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they 
also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they 
also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image 
of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly ” 
(1 Cor. xv. 46-49). 

Clement says somewhere that if we understood the 
two Adams we should know all truth. Notice the “ as ” 
and “so” in 1 Cor. xv. 22. Just as we inherit natural 
life from the first Adam, so do we inherit spiritual life 
from the second Adam. There is, therefore, in every 
man a seed of the divine life, a Christ-germ as it were. 
The old Quakers called it “the witness for God in the 
soul,” “ that which responds to the divine inspeaking.” 

We may appeal in the case of every man, therefore, to 
that within which witnesses for God. And thus we shall 




THE LA W OF LIFE. 


161 


make the new birth, not a barrier, as is too often done, 
but a wide and open gateway. 

There is a divine seed in every man, but it is not 
quickened in all. In the natural world seeds may lie 
dormant, and apparently dead for many years, and yet, 
when the right conditions are secured, these very seeds 
will be quickened into a vigorous life. 

At a late Conference in England I heard Canon 
Wilberforce describe the quickening of a seed that had 
been wrapped up in a mummy for thousands of years. 
It was placed in a little warm water, and he watched it 
through a microscope. In a few minutes the seed began 
to swell, then it burst, and little white filaments shot 
out on every side, waving through the water in search 
of their proper nourishment. The seed was quickened, 
and began at once to “ lay hold ” of life. 

“ Fi g h t the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, 
whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good 
profession before many witnesses” (i Tim. vi. 12). 

“ And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a 
living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit ” 
(1 Cor. xv. 45). 

“ But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love 
wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, 
hath quickened us together with Christ: by grace ve are 
saved ” (Eph. ii. 4, 5). 

The divine seed within us is being quickened by the 
Holy Spirit, whenever we feel inward stirrings and long¬ 
ings after holiness. This is the begetting of God. And 
then comes in our responsibility. We cannot create life, 
but we can let life live. We can “lay hold” of it by an 
entire surrender to Christ, who is our life. We can 

L 




162 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


accept Him as our life, and can refuse to let any other 
life live in us. We can reckon ourselves to be alive in 
Him. 

“ Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed 
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord” (Rom. vi. n). 

This, then, is how the spiritual life is to grow; that is, 
by surrender and faith. We must “boycott” the old 
self-life, and must deal only with the spiritual life. But 
we must not make another mistake, and think that 
although we cannot beget life by our self-efforts, we are 
to make it grow ourselves. We are as powerless in the 
matter of our growth as in the matter of our begetting. 
Life grows of itself. It is a mighty dynamic force that 
only asks a chance to grow. 

“Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit 
unto his stature ? And why take ye thought for raiment ? 
Consider the lilies of the field how they grow ; they toil not, 
neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, That even 
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which 
to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He 
not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith” (Matt, 
vi. 27-30). 

The lily grows by the power of its inward life principle, 
and according to the laws of a lily’s life. No amount of 
its own stretching or straining, nor any pulling up by 
others, would help its growth. It is all folly, and worse 
than folly, for Christians to make such mighty efforts to 
grow. If they would only let the Christ life within them 
grow, unhindered by their interference, they need have 



THE LA W OF LIFE. 


163 

no fear of the result. But we are so ignorant of the laws 
of our spiritual life, that we are continually tempted to 
meddle with it. 

Let us imagine a seed that has just been quickened, 
communing with itself. “ What dreadful place is this I 
am in ? How can anything grow all in the dark like this, 
and with such heaps of heavy earth on top of it ? And, 
oh dear ! what is the matter with me ? I seem to be all 
splitting up ! And look at that bit of me going down ! 
I thought I was meant to grow upwards. What does it 
all mean ? Iam afraid things are all wrong. And now, 
just when I thought I was getting out into the nice sun¬ 
shine, here comes a dreadful storm and drenches me. I 
never can live through all this. Besides, look how little 
I am, and I know I was meant to be a big tree. And 
where is the fruit I was to bear ? I have only got two 
or three tiny green leaves.” And so on, and so on, ad 
infinitum. 

Have you never known any souls that made similar 
complaints ? 

Next we must consider the food of this spiritual life. 
What are the laws of its nourishment ? 

“Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, 
but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. 
Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat 
which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man 
shall give unto you: for Him hath God the Father sealed. 

. . . For the Bread of God is He which cometh down 
from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said 
they unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And 
Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of Life: he that 
cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on 



EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


164 


me shall never thirst” (John vi. 26, 27, 33-35 ; see also 
John vi. 48-58). 

Christians are continually trying to feed their spiritual 
life with all sorts of things other than Christ. They feed 
on the dry husks of dogmas and doctrines, or on forms 
and ceremonies, or on religious duties well performed, or 
on Christian work of various kinds, or on good resolutions, 
or on fervent emotions; and then they wonder at their 
starved condition. Nothing can really satisfy the hunger 
of the soul but Christ. He only can be to the soul all 
that the soul needs. To draw our life from Christ means 
to be so united to Him in oneness of nature as that the 
same spiritual life flows through our spiritual veins as 
flowed through His. This is a subject I know which is 
often regarded as very mystical and difficult to under¬ 
stand. I have no intention of dealing with any mystical 
meanings, but there is a practical common-sense way of 
looking at the matter, that seems to me simple and easy 
to understand. We feed ourselves on the writings of a 
great author by becoming familiar with them, and by 
adopting their teachings as our own; and in the same 
way we must feed on Christ. We know what it is to 
become one in thought and feeling with a beloved and 
honoured friend, and to share that friend’s inmost life; 
and similarly must we become one with Christ. We can 
understand how an artist can feed his mind on the life 
and work and teaching of some great master in art, and 
so become like him, and able, after his measure, to follow 
in that master’s footsteps, and work as he worked ; and 
just so must we do with Christ.* 

* See Lesson on Soul Food, Chapter II 




THE LA W OF LIFE. 


165 


Next comes the law of life as regards fruit-bearing. A 
living plant always bears fruit. It is the law of its life 
that it should do so; and it is equally a law that this 
fruit should come, not by effort, but by spontaneous 
growth. 

“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and 
ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and 
that your fruit should remain : that whatsoever ye shall ask 
of the Father in my name, He may give it you ” (John 
xv. 16). 

We need not trouble ourselves about our fruit-bearing. 
It is “ordained” that we shall bring it forth, just as it is 
ordained that a fig-tree shall bear figs. It is the law of our 
spiritual life; and we can no more have real spiritual life 
within us without bearing fruit than the oak-tree can have 
life without bearing acorns. Very few seem to understand 
this; and as a consequence there is a vast amount of 
effort among Christians to hang fruit on to their branches 
by some outside performances of one sort or another. 
It is as if a man should buy apples and hang them on 
his apple-trees, and think thus to secure to himself a good 
crop of fruit! Fruit must be “brought forth,” not fastened 
on. This is the law of fruit-bearing, and to try to violate 
this law can only bring confusion and death. 

“ Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but 
a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot 
bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth 
good fruit” (Matt. vii. 17, 18). 

The law of fruit-bearing is clearly this, that our fruit 
can only be the outcome of what we are. Therefore 
the thing for me to be concerned about is not so much 




EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


166 


whether my fruit is good or evil, but whether I myself 
as to my essential self am good or evil. 

“ Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather 
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? ” (Matt. vii. 16). 

“ Can the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive berries ? 
either a vine, figs ? so can no fountain both yield salt water 
and fresh” (James iii. 12). 

Another one of the laws of life is that all plants must 
yield fruit after their own kind. I must be content, 
therefore, to be just the species of plant, and to bear 
just the kind of fruit the Divine Husbandman pleases. 
We do not always find that we invariably like to be 
what God has made us to be. Perhaps I would like to 
be a rose-bush, and blossom out in roses, when He 
has made me a potato plant, and wants me to yield 
potatoes. I might be tempted, in such a case, to get 
paper roses and sew them on. But what folly! A 
million paper roses could not turn my potato plant into 
a rose-bush, and the first person who tried to pick one 
would find me out! All I have to do is to see to it 
that, of whatever species of plant I may be, whether a 
homely potato plant or a gorgeous rose, I become a 
healthy vigorous plant, and fulfil without grumbling the 
law of my being. Be content to be what thy God has 
made thee, but do not be content until thou art the best 
of its kind. 

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot 
bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more can 
ye, except ye abide in me ” (John xv. 4). 

“ Blessed is the man that trusjeth in the Lord, and whose 
hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the 
waters, and that spreadeih out her roots by the river, and 




167 


\ 


THE LA W OF LIFE. 


shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green ; 
and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither 
shall cease from yielding fruit” (Jer, xvii. 7, 8). 

“ Abiding,” or in other words, faith, is the law of fruit¬ 
bearing, as well as of everything else in the spiritual life. 
If we “abide in Christ,” that is, if we live a life of trust 
in the Lord, we shall not “cease from yielding fruit;” 
and that fruit will not fail to be good. 

Next we must consider what is the law of strength in 
the spiritual life. 

“And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: 
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly 
therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the 
power of Christ may rest upon me ” (2 Cor. xii. 9). 

The law of the spiritual life is that divine strength 
shall be made perfect in human weakness. Our part 
is to supply the weakness, God’s part is to supply the 
strength. We are, however, continually trying to usurp 
God’s part and to supply the strength ourselves; and, 
because we cannot do this, we are plunged into depths 
of discouragement. We think, in order to work effec¬ 
tively for the Lord, we ought to feel strong in ourselves, 
and when instead we find ourselves feeling weak, we 
are in despair. But the Bible teaches us that, if we 
only knew it, our weakness is in reality our greatest 
strength. 

“And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in 
much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was 
not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstra¬ 
tion of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not 



EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


168 


stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God ” 
(i Cor. ii. 3, 5). 

“ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the 
excellency .of the power may be of God, and not of us” 
(2 Cor. iv. 7). 

It is of vital importance to the children of God that 
they should understand the law that God’s strength 
can be made perfect only in human weakness. For in 
the spiritual life the natural man never can feel strong in 
itself, and if we think it ought to, we shall be continu¬ 
ally troubled. Understanding the law, however, we shall 
learn, like Paul, to “take pleasure” in our infirmities 
and our weaknesses, because we shall see that only 
when we are weak are we really spiritually strong. 

“ Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, 
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s 
sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. 
xii. 10). 

The choice lies between the strength of our own 
human nature, and the strength of the divine nature 
within us; and we may well be glad to lose the one in 
order to gain the other. It is like the difference there 
would be between the power of a seed without life to 
push up and away the clods above it, and the power of 
the life in that seed, when it is quickened. To the tiny 
unquickened mustard seed the weight of ea^th above it 
could not but seem like an immovable mo tain; but, 
when quickened, the life within that same tiny seed 
pushes aside those mountains of earth without any ap¬ 
parent effort. Life carries all before it, and no obstacles 
can withstand its progress. Even rocks are upheaved 



THE LA W OF LIFE . 


169 

by the irresistible power of life in a tiny creeper. It is 
life, more life that we want, not more effort. 

“ 1 af n come that they might have life, and that they 
might have it more abundantly” (John x. 10). 

The environment of this spiritual life is also subject 
to a definite law. Every plant has its own laws of life, 
and can only flourish in certain localities and under 
certain conditions of soil and climate. And on a higher 
plane this is equally true of the spiritual life. Outward 
localities and outward climate make no difference here, 
although Christians often seem to think they do. We 
find ourselves in uncongenial surroundings, and are 
tempted to think our spiritual life cannot flourish in 
such environments. But no outward circumstances can 
affect the life of the soul. Its true environment is all 
inward and spiritual; and this environment is none 
other than God and His love. “ For ye are dead, and 
your life is hid with Christ in God.” This may sound 
mystical, but it is also the profoundest common-sense. 
The sources of one’s life, that is, the objects and aims 
and underlying springs of action, must be either in self 
or in God. If in self, then our life is hid in self; if in 
God, then our life is hid in God; and to “ dwell in God,” 
or, in other words, to “abide in Christ,” means simply 
that we have the underlying spring of all our thoughts, 
words, and actions in Him. 

“ If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, 
and is withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into 
the fire, and they are burned” (John xv. 6). 

The reason of so many “ withered ” lives is to be 



170 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


found in the fact that they do not “abide in Christ.” 
This is an inevitable law. If a branch does not abide 
in the vine it must necessarily wither. The only en¬ 
vironment in which it is possible for the spiritual life to 
flourish is to “abide in God.” And to abide in God 
means simply to maintain an unfaltering trust in Him, 
and a simple obedience to His will. “ If ye keep my 
commandments you shall abide in my love ” is an un¬ 
alterable law. 

“ And we have known and believed the love that God 
hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth in God, and God in him” (i John iv. 16). 

“And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in 
Him, and He in him. And thereby we know that He 
abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us ” 
(i John iii. 24). 

The man who discovers the law of anything possesses 
a power in regard to that thing as limitless as the law 
itself. And the soul that has come to a knowledge of 
the “law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is truly, 
as the Apostle says, “made free from the law of sin 
and death.” 

“ He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
unto the churches : To him that overcometh will I give to 
eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise 
of God ” (Rev. ii. 7). 

“ Thou wilt show me the path of life : in thy presence 
is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore” (Ps. xvi. 11). 

If we will only “hear what the Spirit saith to the 
churches” on this subject, He will give us “to eat of 



THE LA W OF LIFE. 


171 


the tree of life; ” and will reveal to our spiritual insight 
that “path of life” in which, if we will faithfully walk 
therein, we shall be among those “ overcomers ” who 
have come over or been made free from “the law of 
sin and death.” 

It may be asked, however, how we are practically to 
“eat of the tree of life”? An illustration may help us 
here. Let us suppose a person who is dead to the 
delights of astronomy ; who knows nothing about it, and 
has no life in the study of it. How is such a person to 
become alive to this branch of knowledge? There is 
only one way, and that is by studying the subj^tt, by 
learning its laws, and by obeying them. Such a study 
may seem very lifeless at first, but, if it is persisted in, 
sooner or later the mind would become alive to its 
delights. The student would begin to “ eat of the tree 
of life,” and to walk in the “path of life,” in regard to 
astronomy, and would no longer be dead to its charms. 
In the same way, if we would eat of that tree of life 
which is in the midst of the paradise of God, we must 
learn the laws of this life, and must faithfully obey them ; 
and then, sooner or later, we shall be shown the “path 
of life,” and shall triumphantly walk therein. 



LESSON XV. 


THE LA W OF LOVE. 

Foundation Text :—“Owe no man anything, but to love one 
another : for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, 
Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not 
steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and 
if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in 
this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”— 
Rom. xiii. 8, 9. 

In our last two lessons we have considered the law of 
faith, and the law of life, with an especial emphasis on 
the word law. In this lesson we will take up the law of 
love, and consider it in a similar manner. That is, we 
will try to get at the law of love’s working, the essence 
or nature of love, as it were; its inherent and inevitable 
processes. Love is, I believe, as much a law as gravita¬ 
tion, and, if only we understand the way of its working, 
may be reckoned on as certainly as gravitation to produce 
its desired results. 

The first law we would notice is that it is in itself the 
fulfilling of all other laws. “ If there be any other com¬ 
mandment,” Paul says, after enumerating some of the 
principal commandments given from Sinai, “ if there be 
any other, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” All laws, there¬ 
fore, are included and fulfilled in the law of love; and it 


THE LAW OF LOVE. 


173 


is, consequently, of the utmost importance to every one of 
us to discover what this supreme and all-inclusive law is. 

“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: 
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Gal. v. 14). 

“ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is 
the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. xiii. 10). 

The most essential law of love is here stated, that char¬ 
acteristic of it which makes it inclusive of all other laws, 
pamely, “ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour.” It is 
the very nature of love that it cannot by any possibility 
work ill to its neighbour, knowing it to be ill. It is as 
impossible as it would be for the sun to give darkness 
instead of light. Love loves, and cannot therefore do 
anything contrary to love. It is not that it will not or 
ought not, but simply and only that it cannot. It is 
an absolutely inevitable law. 

We must remember, however, that a great deal of what 
is called love ought really to be spelled s-e-l-f-i-s-h-n-e-s-s. 
People love their own enjoyment of their friends more 
than they love the friends themselves, and consider their 
own welfare in their intercourse with those they profess 
to love, far more than the welfare of the so-called loved 
ones. It has been said that we never really love any one 
until we can do without them for their good; and, mea¬ 
sured by this test, how few there are who really love. 
How many lives are marred and made miserable by the 
selfishness of some relative or friend (too often, alas! a 
parent), who, under the p ea of exceeding love, will not 
allow the least liberty of action in the loved ones, and 
will do everything possible to hinder their development 
in every line that does not conduce to their own personal 



174 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


pleasure, or is not agreeable to themselves. Surely such 
a course, however it may be disguised, can spring from 
nothing but pure unadulterated selfishness. 

The law of love can never be a cherishing of self at 
the expense of the loved one, but must always be the 
cherishing of the loved one at the expense of self. 

“ Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s 
wealth” (i Cor. x. 24). 

In considering the law of love, therefore, we must settle 
this fact first of all, that real love has no selfishness in it 
whatever. It never “ seeks its own ” good, but the good 
of the loved one. It forgets self; or, in other words, it 
reckons self to have no claims, and no rights, except the 
right to love, and to spend itself on those it loves. This 
is the way a true mother loves, with a self-forgetfulness 
that leads her to lay down her very life itself, if need be, 
for her children. This is the way Christ loved us while 
we were yet sinners, when He died for us. This is the 
sort of love the poet meant when he said— 

“ Love of God, of such great loving 
Only mothers know the cost; 

Cost of love, that, all love passing, 

Gave itself to save the lost.” 

With this understanding of the “ law of love,” we will 
now consider that law in two aspects, namely, as it affects 
God’s relations to us, and as it affects our relations to our 
fellow-men. 

And, first, I would say that it is absolutely impossible 
for us to know God at all, unless we know something of 
what love is; for “ God is love.” He is as it were made 
out of love. Therefore, the Apostle says:— 



THE LAW OF LOVE. 


175 


“ Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God ; 
and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth 
God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is 
love” (1 John iv. 7, 8). 

God is love; therefore love is the key to the mystery of 
God. He is not only loving, but He is infinitely more 
than that; He is love itself. The sun not only gives light, 
but it is light, the source, and centre, and very being of 
light itself; and this always, although the fact may be 
hidden from our eyes by clouds, or misrepresented by 
coloured or smoked glass. 

We have all used the expression, “ God is love,” hun¬ 
dreds of times, no doubt; but I am afraid it has conveyed 
to our minds no more real idea of the facts of the case 
than if we had said, “ God is wood.” 

If we would know God, therefore, we must know what 
love is; and then we must apply to God all the best and 
highest that we know of love. For God is absolutely 
under the law of love; that is, He is under an inevitable 
constraint to obey it. He alone of all the universe, be¬ 
cause His very essence or nature is love, cannot help 
loving. We, alas! whose natures are not altogether 
composed of love, but are mixed up with a great many 
other things, can help loving, and very often do help it. 
And because this is the case with ourselves, we think it 
must also be the case with Him ; and we torment ourselves 
with imagining that, because of our own especial unwor¬ 
thiness, He will surely fail to love us. What a useless 
torment it is ! How little common-sense there is in it! 

“And we have known and believed the love that God 
hath to us. God is love ; and he that dwelleih in love 
dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John iv. 16). 



76 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


More than anything else, we need to find out “ the 
love that God hath to us.” All difficulties, all anxieties, 
all fears, all perplexities, disappear when the soul has 
made this discovery. I say “ find out,” because the love 
exists just the same whether we know it or not, but we 
do not get the comfort of it, though we may get the good, 
unless we find it out. 

This is plain common-sense. But I fear a great many 
people have an idea that they are obliged to create God’s 
love themselves; and they try, therefore, in every possible 
way to accomplish the impossible feat. This mistake lies 
at the root of all asceticism and of all legal efforts. We 
are simply trying by these means to create love towards 
ourselves in the heart of God; forgetting in our foolish¬ 
ness that all love “ is of God,” and cannot come from 
any other source. 

“ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die : yet per- 
adventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 
But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we 
were yet sinners, Christ died for us ” (Rom. v. 7, 8). 

One of the laws of love is that it loves for love’s sake 
only, and not because of anything lovable in the object. 
How often we have seen mothers lavishing a wealth of 
love upon children who did not seem to others to possess 
one single lovable quality. One of my children once said 
to me, in a fit of remorse after a spell of naughtiness, 
“Oh, mother, I do not see how thee can love such a 
naughty little girl as I am.” And I replied, “Ah, darling, 
thee cannot understand. I do not love thee for what 
thee is, but I love thee for what I am. I am thy mother, 
and I love thee because of my mother-heart of love; 



THE LAW OF LOVE. 


177 


and I should love thee just the same no matter what thee 
did. I should not love thy naughty, but I should love 
thee.” 

“The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose 
you, because ye were more in number than any people ; for 
ye were the fewest of all people ; but because the Lord loved 
you, and because He would keep the oath which He had 
sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out 
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house 
of bond-men, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt” 
(Deut. vii. 7, 8). 

The Lord has not “set His love” upon us because of 
anything we are, nor because of anything we have done or 
can do. He has set His love upon us simply and only 
because it is a law of love to love that which it creates. 
He cannot help loving us. His love flows out of His 
own divine heart of love, exactly as a mother’s love flows 
out of her mother heart upon her little helpless child. It 
is the “ law of love ” that it shall love for “ love’s sake 
only.” 

« Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins 
in His own blood” (Rev. i. 5). 

Notice the order here. He loves first, and then He 
washes. He did not love us because we were washed, 
but He washes us because He loves us. This is the law 
of love. 

If a darling child should be stolen from its mother, 
and carried by tramps into a life of dirt, and misery, and 
rags, and if that mother should one day discover it by the 
wayside, ragged and dirty, would she draw back in dis¬ 
gust and say, “ Oh, do not ask me to love such a dirty 



178 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


child as that! Let it get washed; and then bring it to 
me, and I will love it.” Ah, dear mothers, we know 
better than that! We know how we would rush to our 
child and clasp it in our arms, regardless of its dirt, and 
take it home to wash it and make it clean ; and, although 
we might take more comfort in it after it was washed, 
we would not love it one bit better than we did while 
it was covered with rags and dirt. 

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, 

I have loved thee with an everlasting love : therefore with 
loving-kindness have I drawn thee” (Jer. xxxi. 3). 

Another law of divine love is, that it is everlasting. It 
has had no beginning, and can have no end. So little 
is this understood, that many people have a rooted con¬ 
viction that God only begins to love them after they have 
shown Him that they love Him; and that He ceases to 
love them the moment they in any way displease Him. 
They look upon His love as a fickle sort of thing, not in 
the least to be depended upon, and are always question¬ 
ing whether they may reckon it to be theirs or not. 

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He 
loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins” (1 John iv. 10). 

“ Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid 
down His life for us : and we ought to lay down our lives 
for the brethren” (1 John iii. 16). 

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out 
fear : because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not 
made perfect in love” (1 John iv. 19). 

Could we but really “ perceive the love of God,” we 
should never again know a moment of “ fear,” let the 
outlook be as dark or dangerous as it might. There is 




THE LA W OF LOVE. 


179 


no fear in love; there cannot be in the very nature of 
things. Such is the “ law of love.” 

We have in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians 
a wonderful exposition of the “ law of love.” 

If we translate the word “ charity ” here, as it really is 
in the original, by the word “ love,” we shall more clearly 
understand these laws. 

Love suffereth long. 

Love is kind. 

Love envieth not. 

Love vaunteth not itself. 

Love is not puffed up. 

Love doth not behave itself unseemly. 

Love seeketh not her own. 

Love is not easily provoked. 

Love thinketh no evil. 

Love rejoiceth not in iniquity. 

Love rejoiceth in the truth. 

Love beareth all things. 

Love believeth all things. 

Love hopeth all things. 

Love endureth all things. 

Love never faileth. 

This sort of love could not be spelled s-e-l-f-i-s-h- 
n-e-s-s! 

Let us apply each one of these laws, then, in two 
ways : first, to define God’s relations to us, and, second, to 
teach us what ought to be our relations to one another. 

“ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one 
another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
have love to one another” (John xiii. 34, 35). 



i8o 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


We all have an ideal as to what love between human 
beings ought to be, and we realise a sense of condemna¬ 
tion whenever we fail to come up to our standard. Now if 
it is true that we are to love one another as Christ loves 
us, the converse must be true also, that Christ must love 
us as we know we ought to love one another. In other 
words, the law of love from God to us is exactly the 
same as the law of love from us to one another ) and 
what love demands from me to my brother or sister, is 
what love demands from God to me. This is a far 
more vital point than might appear at first, for wrong 
views of the love of God lie, I am convinced, at the root 
of most of our spiritual difficulties. We take the worst 
elements in our own characters, our selfishness, our im¬ 
patience, our suspiciousness, our hard thoughts of one 
another, as the key to interpret God, instead of taking 
our best elements, of love, and self-sacrifice, and patience, 
as the key. And so we subverse every single law of love 
in our interpretation of God, who is love itself. 

It is one of the laws of love that it suffered! long and 
is kind. Some of us understand this law in human re¬ 
lations, and will suffer and be kind toward our loved 
ones all our lives long. But when it comes to God, we 
think that, although we ought to suffer long, He cannot, 
and that He very easily gets impatient with our way¬ 
wardness and our sin. As if such a thing were possible 
of God who is love ! 

Another law of love is, that it vaunteth not itself, and 
seeketh not its own ; and wherever we see these elements 
manifested, we say of such so-called love that it is not 
really love at love, but only and wholly selfishness. And 
yet, by the strange perversion of things that seem to 




THE LA IV OF LOVE. 


181 


have somehow crept into our ideas of God, we think it 
all right to look upon Him as always seeking to vaunt 
Himself, and as being continually on the look-out for His 
own glory. We seem to think that self-seeking, which is 
so hateful in ourselves, is somehow all right in Him; 
forgetting that the “law of love” must be the same both 
for ourselves and for Him, and that what would be 
contrary to this law in us, would also be contrary to it 
in Him. 

Still another law of love is, that it is not easily pro¬ 
voked, and that it thinks no evil, but beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all 
things. We mothers understand this law, and are always 
thinking the best of our children, believing, and hoping, 
and enduring, until the end of our lives. If the child is 
naughty, we say, “ Poor darling, she is sick; ” or, “ Poor 
boy, we must remember his temptations.” But the same 
mother perhaps will think of God as if He were always 
looking out with an unfriendly eye for the least imper¬ 
fection in herself, and were even putting the worst 
possible construction upon her motives, thinking evil of 
her even when she has really meant all right. 

Another law of love is, that it never faileth. All other 
things are unstable, and are liable to fail at the critical 
moment; but love never. Nothing baffles it, nothing 
wears it out, nothing overcomes it It is all-conquering 
and all-embracing. 

“ Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods 
drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house 
for love, it would utterly be contemned ” (Cant, vii'i. 7). 

We know that sometimes the love of poor human 



182 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


mothers is of this unquenchable sort, but have we ever 
really believed the love of God was ? Could anything 
trouble us, if we did so believe ? 

Ah, dear friends, if we only knew it, the love of God 
is sweeping towards us in an all-victorious, unfailing flood 
of mighty tenderness, that is achieving for each one of 
His children magnificent results, whether they know it 
or not. It is one of the laws of love that it is absolutely 
compelled to do the very best it can for its loved ones. 
God then, because He is love, must be at this very 
moment doing the very best He can for each one of 
us, and must always have been doing so, and must always 
continue to do so. He is absolutely compelled to do 
it, because He is love. Things may look as hard or as 
disastrous as they please, but we, who know something 
of the “law of love,” know that all things are working 
together for our good, and are all ordered by tenderest 
love. 

“ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? shall 
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or naked¬ 
ness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake 
we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep 
for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more 
than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am 
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin¬ 
cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. viii. 35-39). 

Oh! let us be certain about God’s love for us! I 
know that we are poor, weak, failing creatures, and that 
often we are so disgusted with ourselves as to feel as if 



THE LAW OF LOVE. 


1S3 


God also must be disgusted with us. But we must not 
let in such thoughts. That is not the way of love in 
mothers, nor the way of love in God either. “ Nothing 
can separate” love from its object. It is one of the 
laws of love that instead of being driven away, it is 
drawn closer by the needs of its loved ones. It takes 
their sins and sorrows upon itself, and cannot help 
doing so. 

“ In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of 
His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He 
redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all 
the days of old ” (Isa. lxiii. 9). 

What a motherly God is here revealed to us ! Have 
we ever half appreciated Him ? 

Having thus seen what the “ law of love ” is as it affects 
God’s relations to us, let us now consider it in its appli¬ 
cation to our relations with one another. 

“ Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children ; and 
walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given 
Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a 
sweet smelling savour ” (Eph. v. 1,2; see also John xv. 12 ; 
1 John iv. 11, 12). 

All we have said about the law of love applies here. 
We must “ walk in love as Christ hath loved us.” That 
“as” is a word of tremendous import. Do we know 
anything of its meaning experimentally ? 

« He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, 
is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother 
abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling 
in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and 
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, 




EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


184 


because that darkness hath blinded his eyes ” (1 John ii. 9 
11 ; see also 1 John iii. 10-15). 

Let us turn back to the sixteen laws of love given to 
us in 1 Cor. xiii. 4-8, and test our love for one another 
by them. For it is very evident that this love is an 
exceedingly vital matter in our soul-life. “ He that 
loveth not his brother abideth in death.” Tested by the 
laws of love that we have been considering, who of us 
can say that he really loves ? 

All other gifts or graces are valueless in the sight of 
God, if this one grace of love is wanting. “ Though I 
speak with the tongue of men and angels and have not 
love, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal.” What becomes then of all the fine sermons 
preached from unloving hearts, or the eloquent discourses 
uttered by bitter lips ? 

But there is more than this. “Though I have the 
gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all 
knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could 
remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” 
Then what about the stern sectarian whose zeal for the 
Cause (with a capital C) leads him into such unloving 
words and actions? 

But there is still even more. “ Though I bestow all 
my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body 
to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.” 
What then are we to think of a large part of the charities 
and so-called martyrdoms of Christians now-a-days, whose 
hearts seem set rather on judging than on loving one 
another ? 

It is of no use to shirk the question, dear reader. We 
must love our brethren with this divine, unselfish love, 



THE LA W OF LOVE. 


185 


or, in spite of all our gifts, we are nothing but “ sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal.” 

Neither is it our brethren only that we are to l?>ve. 

“ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, 
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully 
use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of 
your Father which is in heaven : for He maketh His sun to 
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the 
just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, 
what reward have ye ? do not even the publicans the same ? 
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than 
others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore 
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” 
(Matt. v. 43-48). 

The perfection here spoken of is the perfection of love. 
In order to be the “children of our Father,” in the 
only true sense of this expression, namely, oneness of 
nature and character, we must love our enemies, for He 
loves His enemies. This exhortation of our Lord’s 
would of course lose all its point if God did not love 
His enemies. To my mind no more tremendous asser¬ 
tion of God’s universal love to all mankind, even to those 
who are His enemies, is made throughout the whole 
Bible than is incidentally contained in this passage. I 
ani to love my enemies because God loves His. If He 
does not love His enemies, then I need not love mine. 
It is as clear as daylight. 

But this is only by the way. The point of the passage 
is, that if I would be perfect in my measure, as God 
is in His, I must love. Love is the sign-manual and the 
test. 



EVERY-DAY RELIGION . 


186 


“ Beloved, let us love one another : for love is of God ; 
and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 
He th^l loveth not knoweth not God; f>r God is love. 
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one 
another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love 
one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected 
in us. In this the children of God are manifest, and the 
children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is 
not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For 
this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that 
we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that 
wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he 
him ? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s 
righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. 
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because 
we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother 
abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a 
murderer : and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life 
abiding in Him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, 
because He laid down His life for us : and we ought to lay 
down our lives for the brethren” (i John iii. 10-16). 

Did we but love after this fashion all victories would 
be possible to us. Love is as irresistible as dynamite. 
No barriers can withstand its overcoming power. The 
cruellest enemy or the hardest sinner must bow before it. 
I once heard of a woman who was like a wild beast in 
her brutal ferocity. No one, at the risk of their lives, 
dared approach her, unless they were armed with a 
revolver. But a Christian woman, who loved sinners, 
went into her cell, armed only with words and looks of 
love, and stooping over her, as she crouched in a corner 
like a tiger ready to spring, kissed her forehead, and 
said, “My dear sister.” In a moment the fountains of 
that poor sinner’s heart were unsealed, and she poured 



THE LAW OF LOVE. 


187 


out floods of tears and sobs of penitent anguish. She 
was saved by the “ law of love.” 

I seem to get glimpses now and then of what life 
would be for all of us, if we but knew and lived by this 
“law of love;” what infinite rest Godward, and what 
mighty power man-ward would be ours ! God grant it 
speedily! 


“ I say to thee—do thou repeat 

To the first man thou mayest meet 
In lan^, highway, or open street— 

“ That he, and we, and all men move 
Under a canopy of love, 

As broad as the blue sky above; 

“ That doubt and trouble, fear, and pain, 
And anguish, all are shadows vain ; 
That death itself shall not remain; 


** That weary deserts we may tread, 

A dreary labyrinth may thread, 
Through dark ways underground be led ; 


“ Yet if we will our Guide obey, 

The dreariest path, the darkest way 
Shall issue out in heavenly day. 

“ And we, on divers shores now cast, 
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, 
All in our Father’s house at last. 

“ And ere thou leave him, say thou this 
Yet one word more,—They only miss 
The winning of that final bliss, 



i88 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


“ Who will not count it true, that Love, 

Blessing, not cursing, rules above, 

And that in it we live and move. 

“ And one thing farther make him know,— 

That to believe these things are so, 

This firm faith never to forego, 

“ Despite of all that seems at strife, 

With blessing, all with curses rife, 

That this is blessing, this is life.” 

— R. C. Trench. 





LESSON XVI. 

THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


Foundation Text : — “ What shall we say then ? That the 
Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to 
righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, 
which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to 
the law of righteousness.”— Rom. ix. 30, 31. 

We have been considering the laws of many things in 
the spiritual life, but none are more important for every¬ 
day religion than the one we are to consider in this 
lesson, namely, the law of righteousness. On no subject 
is there more misunderstanding. Every one realises that 
righteousness is absolutely vital to the spiritual life, not 
only on Sundays but each day in the week as well; and 
every child of God “ follows after” it with eager quest. 
But, like the Israelites of whom our text speaks, how 
many there are who do not attain to it; and whose souls 
cry out in bitter questioning, “ Wherefore ? ” 

Let the Scriptures answer their cry. 

“ Wherefore ? Because they sought it not by faith, but 
as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at 
that stumbling-stone ; as it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion 
a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever be- 
lieveth on Him shall not be ashamed” (Rom. ix. 32, 33). 

“Because they sought it not by faith.” No answer 
could be clearer than this. Faith is the law of spiritual 

189 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


190 


righteousness, and righteousness is to be attained in no 
other way. No amount of works, however religious, can 
bring about true holiness. Outward doings can never 
take the soul into the inner sanctuary of the righteous¬ 
ness of God. The reason of this is evident. God’s 
righteousness is a righteousness of nature or being, and 
outward doings can never create inward life; they can 
only reveal it. God is not righteous because He 
does righteous deeds, but He does righteous deeds 
because He is righteous. This is the essential difference 
between the righteousness of faith and the righteousness 
of works. The last is a righteousness put on from the 
outside, the first springs up from within. The one is 
works, the other is fruit. 

“ For I say unto you, That except your righteousness 
shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, 
ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven ” 
(Matt. v. 20). 

“ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have 
omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, 
and faith : these ought ye to have done, and not to leave 
the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat 
and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites ! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and 
of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 
Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the 
cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also. 
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye 
are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beauti¬ 
ful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and 
of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear 
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and 
iniquity” (Matt, xxiii. 23-28). 




THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


191 


No sin in all the Bible receives such utter condemna¬ 
tion as this one of substituting an outward righteousness 
of doing for an inward righteousness of being. A man 
may “appear” ever so righteous outwardly, but if his 
inward springs of life are “ full of extortion and excess,” 
there is no real righteousness in anything he does. The 
law of spiritual righteousness is above all things this, that 
it is real. And to be real, it must be inward; not inward 
only of course, but inward first, before it reveals itself 
outwardly. 

“ But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the 
house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will 
put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts ; and will be their God, and they shall be my people ” 
(Jer. xxxi. 33). 

“For the Lord seeth not as man seeth ; for man looketh 
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the 
heart ”(1 Sam. xvi. 7). 

Even on the earthly plane we recognise that the “ out¬ 
ward appearance” is very often no indication of any 
real thing inside; and we value the kind deeds our 
friends do for us only in proportion as we believe them 
to be the manifestation of an inward reality. That which 
is on the outside only, has no charm, even to human 
eyes. Much more then can we understand that this 
must be the case with God. 

\ 

“ Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and 
honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from 
me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines 
the commandments of men ” (Matt. xv. 7-9). 



192 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


It is all “in vain” for us to think that any'righteous¬ 
ness which is only outside can be acceptable to God, or 
of any worth to ourselves. Nothing was more univer¬ 
sally condemned by our Lord, and nothing was more 
despised by the Apostles. If ever any man had that 
wherein he might glory as to outward righteousness, Paul 
had. He had been zealous and faithful in all that his 
religion demanded of him, and could even say of himself 
that “ touching the righteousness that is in the law ” he 
had been blameless; and yet, in the face of the reality 
of true inward righteousness in Christ, he counted all 
this outward righteousness to be but dung, that he might 
“win Christ and be found in Him, not having his own 
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is 
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is 
of God by faith.” (See Phil. iii. 4-9). 

Paul had learned that only the “ righteousness which 
is of God by faith” could satisfy the longings of his 
awakened spiritual nature. And every child of God 
since must learn the same lesson. Our souls cry out 
for something that is real. We go through all the faith¬ 
ful round of outward doings; we give up this; we con¬ 
sent to that; we perform every known duty; we are 
obedient to all requirements ; and yet we are not satisfied. 
We feel, as our Lord Himself has said, that the right¬ 
eousness that belongs to the kingdom of God must “ ex¬ 
ceed” this outward righteousness, just as the inward 
reality always exceeds the outward show ; and we cannot 
be satisfied short of it. 

“ Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel 
is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that 
they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 



THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


m 


For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going 
about to establish their own righteousness, have not sub¬ 
mitted themselves unto the righteousness of God ” (Rom. 
x. 1-3). 

Dear reader, I would appeal to your own experience, 
and ask whether the case of Israel is not also your own 
case ? Are you not conscious of having a “ zeal of God ” 
after righteousness, that has never yet been realised ? Do 
you not feel that your expectations at conversion, as to 
the righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which 
you then understood were to be the characteristics of 
your new life, have failed to become your portion ? Is 
there not some terrible deficiency in your experience, for 
which you do not know how to account ? The passage 
quoted above explains all this. You have been trying 
to establish your own righteousness, and have not known 
how to submit yourselves to the righteousness of God. 

“ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth ” (Rom. x. 4). 

Christ is the end of all our self efforts after righteous¬ 
ness; not “at the end,” as I used to think, but the 
actual ending of them. For He is our righteousness. 
That is, the life of Christ in our souls is a righteous life, 
which produces all right outward actions by the power of 
its inward workings ; and therefore, in the very nature of 
things, puts an end to any need for “going about to 
establish our own righteousness.” Instead of our trying 
to take possession of righteousness, the life of Christ 
in the soul makes righteousness take possession of us. 
We are controlled from within, and not from without. 

N 



194 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


“ Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh 
be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge 
of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law 
is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets ; 
even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ unto all and upon all them that believe : for there 
is no difference” (Rom. iii. 20-22). 

The law then by which this “righteousness of God” 
works is the law of faith. You have understood this 
law as regards the forgiveness of your sins, and learned 
long ago, perhaps, how you must lay aside all legal 
efforts to earn or purchase forgiveness for yourselves, 
and must take it by simple faith as a gift from the Lord 
Jesus Christ. But when it came to righteousness, this 
has seemed to you, it may be, a different matter, and 
you have honestly thought you ought to bring it about 
by your own self-efforts. You have failed to notice the 
significance of the “as” and “so” in the verse which 
says, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the 
Lord, so walk ye in Him.” You received Him by simple 
faith alone, and you must walk in Him by simple faith 
alone also. This was the secret Luther discovered on 
that memorable day in Rome, as he was climbing on his 
knees up the stairs in the Vatican, hoping to make him¬ 
self righteous thereby. When he was half-way up he was 
suddenly arrested by the voice of God sounding in his 
heart the words, “The just shall live by faith;” and he 
saw, as in a vision, that the righteousness of God, the 
only sort of righteousness with which his soul could be 
satisfied, was to come by faith and by faith alone; and 
he rose from his knees a new man. 

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world : 



THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


*95 


and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our 
faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that 
believeth that Jesus is the Son of God ? ” (1 John v. 4, 5). 

“ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now 
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the 
grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then 
Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. ii. 20, 21). 

Not only were we made alive in the first place by 
Christ, but moment by moment we must live in Him. 
When temptations arise we must no longer try to conquer 
them ourselves; we must not meet them with our own 
resolves or our own efforts; we must meet them simply 
with the Lord. We must hide in Him as within the 
walls of a Gibraltar, and make Him our “strong refuge.” 
In the language of an old writer, we must say to Him, 
“ Lord, thou hast declared that sin shall not have 
dominion over thy people. I believe this word of 
thine cannot be broken; and therefore, helpless in my¬ 
self, I rely upon thy faithfulness to save me from the 
dominion of the sins which now tempt me. Put forth 
thy power, O Lord Christ, and get thyself great glory 
in subduing my flesh, with its affections and lusts.” 
Then, having thus committed our temptations to Him, 
we must believe that He has undertaken to deliver us, 
and we must leave ourselves in His care. We must 
stand by, and let Him fight. And we shall find, to our 
unutterable rejoicing, that He does deliver, according 
to His word. The enemy flees from His presence, and 
the soul is enabled to be “ more than conqueror ” through 
Him. 

This is the law of God’s righteousness, under the 



196 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


covenant of grace. The righteousness of the old cove¬ 
nant was not like this. It began at the opposite end. 
It put works first, and life last, as the result of works; 
while the new covenant puts life first, and works last, as 
the result of life. The one said, “ This do, and thou 
shalt live;” the other says, “Live, and then thou shalt 
do.” The old covenant was a law imposed from the 
outside. The new covenant is a law written within. 

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the 
house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will 
put my laws into their mind, and write them in their 
hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to 
me a people; and they shall not teach every man his 
neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the 
Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest 
. . . In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the 
first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is 
ready to vanish away” (Heb. viii. 7-13). 

If righteousness could have come under the cove¬ 
nant of works, then “no place would have been sought” 
for a new covenant. But it could not so come; not, 
however, because of any arbitrary enactment of God, 
but because of the very nature of things which makes 
it inevitable that works must always be the result of 
life, and never life the result of works. Faith, and faith 
only, is the divine law of righteousness. 

“For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the 
law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by 
them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on 
this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into 
heaven ? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, 
Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up 



197 


THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


Christ again from the dead.) But what sayeth it ? The 
word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: 
that is, the word of faith, which we preach ; that if thou 
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the 
dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth 
unto lighteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made 
unto salvation ” (Rom. x. 5-10). 

“The righteousness which is of faith” speaketh to us 
here in unmistakable terms. “With the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness.” “ With the heart,” that 
is with the inner man, the central “ ego ” of our being. 
If this inner man takes up an attitude of faith for 
righteousness, righteousness cannot fail to come. This 
is the law of a righteous life; and it is good plain 
common-sense as well. Out of the heart are the issues 
of life, and out of nothing else. And the heart, or, in 
other words, the inner man, works by faith and by faith 
alone. By faith therefore, we must reckon ourselves 
dead to sin, and by faith we must reckon ourselves alive 
unto righteousness. By faith we must put off the old 
man, and by faith we must put on the new man. We 
must turn our back on self and all seifs activities ; and, 
ceasing from our own works, we must suffer Christ to 
work in us “to will and to do of His good pleasure.” 

“ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made 
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption” (1 Cor. i. 30). 

“ Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed 
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye 
should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your 
members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but 





198 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the 
dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness 
unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you : for 
ye are not under the law, but under grace ” (Rom. vi. 

11-14)* 

The inner working of the law of righteousness is 
revealed here in the two words “reckon” and “yield.” 
These are the things we have to do, God does all the 
rest. Tins is the attitude of faith. 

I can best illustrate my meaning by the experience of 
a little girl of my acquaintance. She was a child of 
about seven years, and was, as her mother believed, a 
little Christian, with a very simple but real faith in her 
Saviour. She was, however, sometimes quite naughty. 
One night as she was going to bed, she said to her 
mother, “ Mother, what can be the reason that I am so 
naughty? I know I am one of Jesus’s lambs, and I thought 
His lambs were always good; but though I try and try 
as hard as I can, I am not always good” Her mother, 
who knew something about the unalterable working of 
this law of righteousness, said, “ The reason is, darling, 
that you are trying to be good in your own strength, and 
are not trusting the Lord to make you good.” 

“ Of course I am,” the child replied. “ That is the 
only way there is to be good, to just try and try as hard 
as you can.” 

“ Oh, no,” said the mother, “ that is not the way at 
all. You never can be good that way. You must just 
trust Jesus to make you good.” 

“ I don’t believe that at all,” said the child indignantly. 
“ I believe the way is to make up your minds to be 
good, and then to put all your will into it, and just try.” 



THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


199 


The mother tried to explain the law of righteousness, 
somewhat as it has been set forth in this lesson, and 
told the little girl that she herself had tried all ways of 
being good, and had never succeeded until she trusted 
the Lord to make and keep her good. But all was in 
vain. The little girl persisted that she knew she could be 
good, if she only tried hard enough; and that she was 
sure that was the way. 

Finally, the mother thought of a plan, and said, “Very 
well, darling, if you will be good for a whole month by your 
own efforts, I will give you fifty dollars ” ;£io). The 

child was delighted, and eagerly embraced her mother’s 
offer. “ I will begin to-morrow,” she cried with eager 
anticipation, “ and I know I shall be good every minute 
of the time, for I am just going to put my whole will into 
it, and make myself be good.” 

The next morning the little girl was awake bright and 
early, and called out eagerly from her little bed, “ Well, 
mother, I am going to begin being good to-day, and you 
had better write down what day of the month it is, so as 
to keep a safe account.” The mother agreed. Then in 
a few minutes the child added, as if after a little thought 
about the difficulties that might beset her, “ But mind, 
mother, nobody must be provoking.” This was promised, 
and the day began. 

In about ten minutes there was not a naughtier little 
girl in that whole neighbourhood; and all that day, and 
the next, and the next the naughtiness continued. The 
mother said nothing, thinking it best to wait for the 
Holy Spirit to teach the child Himself. 

At the close of the third day, as the mother was 
tucking up her darling for the night, the little girl burst 



200 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


out with, “Well, mother, I am cured at last.” “Cured,” 
repeated the mother in surprise, “cured of what?” 
“ Why, cured of trying to make myself good,” replied the 
child. “ It is not a bit of use, for I did try just as hard 
as ever I could, and I could not be good. And besides,” 
she added, “ I found out, that even if I could be good 
outside, it would not be good inside, so where was the 
use ? ” 

Silently thanking God for His divine teaching, the 
mother assured the child that, now she had found out" 
her own helplessness, she might with confidence trust 
the Lord to make her good; and tried to tell her in 
simple language how to do this. The childish heart 
seemed to comprehend the “law of righteousness,” and 
joyfully put itself into the hands of the Lord, that He 
might give the victory. 

“Do you tell everybody this, mother?” she asked 
earnestly at last, “ for I am sure there must be lots of 
people just like me, who think they can be good in their 
own strength; and they ought to know.” Then, as her 
mother leaned over the little cot for the last farewell kiss, 
the child added her final childish prayer, “ Dear Lord, 

I thank thee for curing me of that foolish notion; and 
if I am not all cured to-night, please let me be all cured 
by to-morrow morning. Amen 1 ” 



LESSON XVII. 

“SIT STILL” 

Foundation Text “ For the Egyptians shall help in vain, 
and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their 
strength is to sit still.”— Isa. xxx. 7. 

There is immense power in stillness. All of God’s 
greatest creative works are done in silence. All the 
vital functions of our bodies are silently performed. The 
moment they make a noise, we are sure they are out of 
order. If I can hear the beating of my heart, I know at 
once that something is wrong. If my brain makes a 
buzzing noise in my ears, I am afraid that I have brain 
disease. 

This is far more true of spiritual forces. Their work 
is always done in the stillness. Faith, that mightiest of 
all spiritual powers, makes no noise in its inward exercise. 
The new birth is silently accomplished. The Spirit of 
God works noiselessly within our hearts, and effects all 
its mighty transformations in deepest stillness. The 
“ creature ” in us may accompany all these processes 
with noise and bustle, but as to the process itself, we 
must all recognise that it is silently wrought. 

This being the case, one would suppose that we could 
not fail to understand the truth of the declaration that our 
“strength is to sit still.” And perhaps on the Sabbaths 

201 


202 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


of life we do catch some glimmerings of this fact. But 
our week-days are so full of bustle and activity that it is 
difficult for us to see how it can be possible to “ sit still ” 
in the midst of it all. We are accustomed, on the 
plane of matter, to accomplish all our results by active 
work and struggle, and it is hard for us to understand 
how it can be different on the plane of spirit. Or rather, 
it is hard to see that any activity can exist in stillness. 
The Quakers have an expression that exactly describes 
our natural attitude in spiritual things. They call it 
“ creaturely activity,” and they mean that the creature 
in us, that which the Bible calls the “natural man,” 
is apt to push its activities outside of its own sphere 
of matter into the sphere of spirit, where it has no 
power, and where it can never accomplish anything. 
This is simply a law of its being. “ The natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they 
are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned.” 

The caterpillar, no matter how much it might try, 
could never fly, because on the caterpillar plane of life 
there is no flying power. But let this same caterpillar 
become a butterfly, and flying will be natural and easy. 
In the same way the “flesh” or the “natural man” 
cannot be active in spiritual things, because its sphere of 
life is not on the spiritual plane, but on the natural. 

“So then they that are in the flesh cannot please 
God.” This does not of course mean that man in the 
body cannot receive the things of God nor be subject to 
His law, but that the natural or fleshly man in us 
cannot, because it belongs to a different plane of life. 
And similarly the natural or fleshly activities in us 





“SIT STILL” 


203 


cannot control spiritual forces, because they also belong 
to an entirely different plane. 

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after 
the flesh : (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, 
but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong¬ 
holds ;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing 
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring¬ 
ing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” 
(2 Cor. x. 13, 14). 

No carnal, />., fleshly, weapons can ever pull down 
spiritual strongholds, and no carnal activities can accom¬ 
plish spiritual results. Therefore our strength in the 
region of spirit must necessarily be to “sit still” as to 
the activities of the creature, and to be alert only as to 
the activities of the Spirit. 

“For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, 
In returning and rest shall ye be saved ; in quietness and 
in confidence shall be your strength : and ye would not. 
But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore 
shall ye flee : and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore 
shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand shall 
flee at the rebuke of one ; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee : 
till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and 
as an ensign on an hill” (Isa. xxx. 15-17). 

The Israelites of old, like Christians now, could not 
believe that quietness and rest were the way of strength 
and deliverance; and they tried instead to “ flee upon 
horses,” and to “ ride upon the swift,” just as we now 
try to find our deliverance by earthly means and by 
creaturely activities. It is as useless for us as for them ; 
and our defeats, as theirs were, are as a thousand to one. 
The truth is, the silent way is the only victorious way. 




204 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


A great student of Christian philosophy once said to me, 
“ All things come to him who knows how to trust and 
be silent; ” and the words are pregnant with meaning. 
A knowledge of this fact would immensely change our 
ways of working. Instead of the restless and wearying 
struggles of our present methods, we would “ sit down ” 
inwardly before the Lord, in “ quietness and confidence,” 
and would let the divine forces of His Spirit work out 
in silence the ends to which we aspire. You may not 
see or feel the operations of this silent force, but be 
assured it is always working mightily, and will work for 
you, if only you can get your spirit still enough to be 
carried along by the currents of its power. 

“And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand 
still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show 
to you to-day : for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, 
ye shall see them again no more for ever ” (Exod. xiv. 13). 

Only when we “ stand still ” can we see the salvation 
of the Lord. While full of bustle and hurry, we have 
no eyes to spare for God’s work; our own work absorbs 
all our interest. Moreover, our creaturely activity, in¬ 
stead of helping, really hinders His working. Spiritual 
forces cannot have full* flow when carnal forces usurp 
their place; and to see God’s salvation fully worked out, 
we must let His power accomplish it all, and must not 
permit our own “carnal” working to interfere. 

“ Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know 
how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest 
until he have finished the thing this day ” (Ruth iii. 18). 

To many this “sitting still” may seem like laziness, 
and they may naturally think that nothing can be accom- 



“SIT STILL” 


205 


plished under such conditions. But we are only to sit 
still because God works. Naomi could tell Ruth to 
sit still, because she had faith enough in Boaz to be able 
to add, “ For the man will not be in rest until he have 
finished the matter this day.” The Lord cannot rest 
while there remains anything unfinished for His people. 

“For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness 
thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as 
a lamp that burneth” (Isa. lxii. 1). 

No mother can rest while her children are needing 
anything, and neither can God. Therefore, just as the 
child “sits still” in its little heart, in perfect confidence 
that the mother will care for it, so must we “ sit still ” in 
our hearts, in perfect confidence that our Father will 
care for us. 

I say, sit still in our hearts, because this stillness of 
which I am writing is an inward stillness. It may also 
be an outward stillness as well, and I think the outward 
stillness often helps the inward. But, on the other 
hand, it may be accompanied with great outward activity; 
though never, I think, with bustle or hurry, for “ he that 
believeth maketh not haste.” But whether the body is 
active or still, the attitude of the spirit must always be 
one of stillness. 

“ And the work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the 
effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. 
And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and 
in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places; when it shall 
hail, coming down 01 the forest; and the city shall be low 
in a low place” (Isa. xxxii. 17-19), 




206 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


There may be storms of hail outside; but within, the 
“ habitation ” of the spirit is a “ quiet resting-place ” in 
God. This sitting still, therefore, does not interfere 
with outward activity, but is, in fact, the source of its 
strength. If I am working at anything outwardly, and 
am inwardly at rest about it, I shall do it far more 
successfully than if I fret, and fume, and fuss inwardly. 
This is a matter of universal common-sense experience. 

“ Keep silence before me, O islands ; and let the people 
renew their strength : let them come near; then let them 
speak : let us come near together to judgment ” (Isa. xli. i). 

Our strength is never renewed in noise and bustle. 
These only weaken and waste it. Try it for yourself, 
dear reader. The next time you find yourself in need 
of a renewal of strength, get still before the Lord. If 
possible, sit down in silence somewhere, and collect 
your restless and wandering spiritual faculties into a 
silent waiting upon Him, and see if strength does not 
flow into you from Him. This is what the old saints 
used to call “recollection; ” and it was in this way they 
gained the wonderful spiritual vigour for which we so 
envy them. 

“ Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord : for He is raised 
up out of His holy habitation” (Zech. ii. 13). 

“And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount 
before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a 
great and strong wind rent the mountain, and brake in 
pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not in 
the wind : and after the wind an earthquake ; but the Lord 
was not in the earthquake : and after the earthquake a fire ; 
but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still 
small voice” (1 Kings xix. 11, 12). 



“sit still: 


207 


Only in the “ silence of all flesh ” can the “ still, small 
voice ” be heard. A large part of the difficulty experi¬ 
enced by Christians in hearing the voice of the Lord 
arises, I am convinced, from the absence of this inward 
stillness. Our own internal clamour drowns His quiet 
speaking. We listen for His voice “ in the wind ” and 
“ in the earthquake,” expecting their thunder to sound 
above all our own clamouring; and because we are dis¬ 
appointed, we complain that He does not speak at all; 
when all the while, the “still small voice” of His love is 
waiting for the quiet in which it can be heard. I am 
convinced that there are many at this moment hunger¬ 
ing for the voice of the Lord, who would hear it at once 
if they would but “ be silent before Him ” for a little 
while. This is the foundation thought of the silent 
meetings of the “ Friends,” even though it may be that 
their outward stillness does not always secure the perfect 
inward stillness that is the vital thing. All the saints of 
old have insisted upon stillness as a necessity of true 
communion with God, and have exhorted their followers 
to cultivate it; and every saint of the present day 
knows its value. 

I remember a story of a little girl at her prayers, that 
impressed me very much. Her mother was in the next 
room, with the door ajar, and she heard the little trust¬ 
ing voice going through its childish petitions, and then 
adding quaintly, “And now, dear Jesus, I have said all 
I want to say to you, and I will listen to hear what you 
have to say to me.” There came a few moments of 
perfect silence, and then a soft, satisfied, “ Thank you, 
dear Jesus, that was very nice,” and the little listener 
ran off to her play. 



208 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


Try the baby’s plan, dear grown-up Christian, and see 
if you, too, cannot get* quiet enough inwardly to hear 
the “ still small voice ” of God. 

“ And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was 
in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord 
my God: but the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 
Thou hast shed blood abundantly and hast made great 
wars : thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because 
thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. 
Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of 
rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round 
about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give 
peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. He shall build 
an house for my name ; and he shall be my son, and I will 
be his father ; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom 
over Israel for ever” (i Chron. xxii. 7-9). 

To know the indwelling of the Lord as a conscious 
experience, there must be inward quiet. Where there 
are wars and fightings inwardly, His presence cannot be 
realised. I do not mean that when the soul is in conflict 
the Lord has forsaken it. A thousand times, No ! The 
Lord was with David just as truly as He was with Solo¬ 
mon ; but it required a “ man of rest ” to build the 
house to His name, and not a man in the midst of wars. 
What I mean is only this, that His indwelling presence 
cannot be consciously realised when we are in the midst 
of internal wars; and that to have the conscious experi¬ 
ence of His indwelling we must be at rest inwardly, and 
must know what it is to “keep silence” from all our 
fears and anxieties, and all our fussings and worryings. 

“ But the Lord is in His holy temple : let all the earth 
keep silence before him ” (Hab. ii. 20). 




“SIT STILLJ 


209 


“ Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of 
plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of 
apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that 
which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and 
quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price ” 
(1 Peter iii. 3, 4). 

Our active service may or may not be pleasing to the 
Lord, according to what is the motive behind it; but if 
we would cultivate something that can never fail to 
please Him, we will seek to have always that “meek 
and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great 
price.” Stop and think for a moment what an inestim¬ 
able privilege it is to be able to offer to the Lord some¬ 
thing that is of “great price” to Him, and see if we 
shall not be stirred up to cultivate more and more of 
this inward quietness of spirit, that knows no anxiety 
and no hurry. 

“ But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more 
and more ; and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your 
own business, and to work with your own hands, as we 
commanded you” (1 Thess. iv. 10, 11). 

“ Study to be quiet,” that is, study to dismiss all bustle 
and worry out of your inward life. Study also to “ do 
your own business,” and do not try to do the business 
of other people. A great deal of “ creaturely activity ” 
is expended in trying to do other people’s business. It 
is often very hard to “ sit still ” when we see our friends, 
according to our ideas, mismanaging matters, and making 
such dreadful blunders. But the divine order, as it is 
also the best human order as well, is for each one of us 
to do our own business, and to refrain from meddling 
with the business of any one else. 


o 




210 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


“ Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands 
full with travail and vexation of spirit ” (Eccles. iv. 6). 

“ Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an 
house full of sacrifices with strife” (Prov. xvii. i). 

If this is true, and who can doubt it, in the earthly 
life, how much more true must it be in the spiritual life. 
There is nothing more distressing than the “ travail and 
vexation of spirit,” and the “ house full of sacrifices with 
strife,” that is so often the prevailing condition of the 
Christian heart. All of us know far too much of these 
sad conditions, and can speak from a hitter experience. 
We may feel that the Lord is feeding our souls with 
very “dry morsels,” and may be tempted to make 
“ sacrifices with strife ” in order to procure for ourselves 
what seems to us more nourishing food. But if we have 
learned anything of the strength of stillness, we shall 
understand that far better is a “ handful with quietness 
than both the hands full with travail and vexation of 
spirit,” and shall be content with whatever morsels the 
Lord may give us, and rest in quiet peace until He shall 
give us more. 

“ But whoso hearkeneth unto me, shall dwell safely, and 
shall be quiet from fear of evil” (Prov. i. 33). 

The key to this interior quietness of soul, is faith. 
To “ hearken ” to the Lord does not simply mean to 
hear Him, but to hear Him in faith, that is, to believe 
what He says. 

“And to whom sware He that they should not enter into 
His rest, but to them that believed not ? So we see that 
they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us there¬ 
fore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His 



“SIT STILL: 


21 I 


rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto 
us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them : but the 
word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with 
faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do 
enter into rest ” (Heb. iii. 18, 19, and iv. 1-3). 

In order to enter into this inward rest, our hearing 
must be “mixed with faith;” that is, we must implicitly 
believe what the Lord has said, and must never let in 
a question or a doubt as to the blessed declarations He 
has made concerning His love and care for us. The 
real fact is, that if we do believe these declarations, we 
cannot fail to be at rest No child can go on worrying 
or being frightened when once it is convinced that its 
mother is at hand to protect it. Often it is hard to 
convince the child of this, for its little heart is in too 
great a flutter to hearken. But when once it really is 
convinced, all its trouble vanishes. And just so will it 
be with us; “ we which have believed do enter into rest ” 
always. 

“ But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love 
wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins 
hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are 
saved ;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit 
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ” (Eph. ii. 4-6). 

This is our rightful place, to be “ seated ” in heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus, and to “sit still” there. But 
how few there are who make it their'actual experience ! 
How few, indeed, think even that it is possible for them 
to “sit still” in these “ heavenly places ” in the every¬ 
day life of a world so full of turmoil as this. We may 
believe perhaps that to pay a little visit to these heavenly 





212 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


places on Sundays, or now and then in times of spiritual 
exaltation, may be within the range of possibility; but to 
be actually “ seated ” there every day and all day long 
is altogether another matter. And yet it is very plain 
that it is a universal command for Sundays and week¬ 
days as well, and therefore, even in the life of the greatest 
turmoil, it must be possible. 

I believe myself that this is the only way in which one 
can get through the week-days of life with any sort of 
real success. A quiet spirit is of inestimable value in 
carrying on outward activities; and nothing so hinders 
the working of the hidden spiritual forces, upon which 
after all our success in anything really depends, as a 
spirit of unrest and anxiety. 

To secure this inward stillness, but three things are 
necessary, and these are fully set forth in Lesson IV. 
(Yield, Trust, Obey). When our affairs are really handed 
over to the Lord in absolute trust, and we are prepared 
to obey His will in regard to them all, there must be 
quiet of spirit. There is, in fact, no room or place for 
unrest. 

“ Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted 
among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The 
Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge” 
(Ps. xlvi. io, n). 

In order really to know God, this inward stillness is 
absolutely necessary. I remember when I first learned 
this. A time of great emergency had arisen in my life, 
when every part of my being seemed to throb with 
anxiety, and when the necessity for immediate and 
vigorous action seemed overpowering. And yet circum- 



“sit still: 


213 


stances were such that I could do nothing, and the 
person who could, would not stir. For a little while it 
seemed as if I must fly to pieces with the inward turmoil, 
when suddenly the still small voice whispered in the 
depths of my soul, “ Be still, and know that I am God.” 
The word was with power, and I hearkened. I com¬ 
posed my body to perfect stillness, and I constrained my 
troubled spirit into quietness, and looked up and waited. 
And then I did “ know ” that it was God, God even in 
the very emergency, and in my very helplessness to meet 
it; and I rested in Him. He was exalted “ among the 
heathen” and in my earth. It was an experience that I 
would not have missed for worlds. And I may add also, 
that out of this stillness seemed to arise a power to deal 
with the emergency that very soon brought it to a suc¬ 
cessful issue. 

I learned then effectually the lesson that my “ strength 
was to sit still.” 

I believe it is often helpful to compel the body to be 
still, as an aid to the quieting of the spirit; but where 
this cannot be, let me entreat all my readers to begin 
from this time onward to “ sit still ” in their hearts, sure 
that the Lord “will not be in rest until He have 
finished ” the matter, whatever it may be, that concerns 
them. 



LESSON XVIII. 

WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 

Foundation Text: —“And immediately Jesus stretched forth 
his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, 
wherefore didst thou doubt?”— Matt. xiv. 31. 

“Wherefore didst thou doubt?” This is a most 
significant question. It is as though our Lord had said, 
“Knowing me as thou dost, Peter, and having had 
experience of all my love and care for thee so long, how 
is it that thou canst doubt me now' ? If I have called 
thee to come to me on the water, of course I will enable 
thee to do so. What are boisterous winds or tossing 
waves to me, who am the Creator and Ruler of them all ? 
Wherefore dost thou doubt ? ” 

This question is as full of significance now as it was 
on that stormy night in Galilee, 1800 years ago. Of 
thousands of Christians living on the earth at the present 
moment it might well be asked. For when winds are 
contrary and seas are stormy with us, doubts and fears 
are as near at hand to overwhelm us as they were near 
at hand to Peter; and the reproach, “ O thou of little 
faith,” applies as definitely to many of Christ’s disciples 
now as it did to Peter then. 

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves 
beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And He was in 

214 


WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT 1 215 


the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow : and they 
awake Him and say unto Him, Master, carest thou not 
that we perish ? And He arose, and rebuked the wind, 
and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind 
ceased, and there was a great calm. And He said unto 
them, Why are ye so fearful ? How is it that ye have no 
faith” (Mark iv. 37-40). 

The fright of these disciples was not caused by the 
great storm to which they were exposed, but by their 
own lack of faith. Storms cannot frighten people who 
are trusting in the Lord. Doubt is the foundation of 
every fear that can by any possibility assail the child 
of God. 

“For whoso hearkeneth unto me, that is, whoso believes 
what I say, shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from 
fear of evil.” Most people, alas ! do not hearken unto 
God, but they hearken instead to their own fears. The 
soul that really hearkens unto the Lord knows there is 
absolutely nothing to be afraid of, and will declare 
triumphantly with the Psalmist, “ The Lord is my 
light and my salvation; whom shall I fear ? the Lord is 
the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid ? ” 
And it will answer its own questions with the confident 
assertion, “Though an host should encamp against me, 
my heart shall not fear!” Not all the hosts of earth or 
hell can frighten the soul that “ hearkens unto God.” 

Of course it will be understood that I am not in this 
lesson dealing with the doubts of unbelievers, such 
doubts as are called Agnostic doubts. It is the doubts 
of disciples I refer to, such doubts as Peter had, or 
those disciples in the little ship into which the waves 
were beating on that stormy evening, long ago; doubts 



216 


E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 


as to God’s love for us and His care over us, doubts as 
to His wisdom, or as to His omnipotence, or as to His 
interest in our affairs, or as to His watchfulness, or as to 
His abiding presence with us. We all know the sort of 
doubts I mean, and have probably all been more or less 
plagued by them at one time or another in our lives. 

“ And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee ; and thou 
shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of 
thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it 
were even ! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were 
morning ! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt 
fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see ” 
(Deut. xxviii. 66,* 67). 

I believe there are many Christians whose experience 
could best be described in very much these same words. 
Their life (spiritual life) hangs in doubt before them con¬ 
tinually, and they have no assurance of their life. Doubts 
eat into the very heart of everything. Nobody can have 
any comfort who indulges in doubts. A great many people 
have contracted such an inveterate habit of doubting, 
that no drunkard was ever more in bondage to his drink 
habit than they are to their doubt habit. And the worst 
of it is that they seem to have settled down under their 
doubts as to a sort of chronic malady, from which they 
suffer very much, but to which they must resign them¬ 
selves as to a part of the necessary discipline of this 
earthly life. They even lament over their doubts as a 
man might lament over his rheumatism, and look upon 
their doleful experience as though it were an “interest¬ 
ing case ” of especial and peculiar trial, which calls for 
the tenderest sympathy and the uttermost consideration ! 




WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 


217 


I appeal to my readers whether this is not a true descrip¬ 
tion of a great deal of their religious life. 

Now the vital question is, Wherefore do we doubt? 
Is doubt a necessary and integral part of the Christian 
religion; and if it is not, why has it gained such a foot¬ 
hold ? To the first part of this question I would reply 
emphatically, that the whole testimony of Scripture, and 
the verdict of common-sense as well, is utterly against 
doubting; and that .as a truth doubting is always and 
everywhere, in the Bible and out of it, treated by God as 
a sin. We are, in fact, told plainly that the man who 
wavereth (/.<?. doubteth) must not expect to receive any¬ 
thing of the Lord (James i. 6, 7). Faith, absolute and 
unconditional, is the universal requirement; and, in view 
of the character of the One whom we are called upon 
to trust, it is the only sensible and reasonable thing. 
It is amazing that we can be so idiotic as to doubt or 
question anything with which God, our unchangeable 
omnipotent God, has to do. Our Divine Master when 
on earth tried hard to convince us of the utter folly of 
doubt. One of His very last commands was this, “ Let 
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid; ” and 
consequently when we indulge in doubts or fears, we 
are not only doing a very silly thing, but we are also 
directly disobeying Him. The grounds upon which He 
gives us this command is His own assurance that if 
there was any, even the slightest reason for fear, “ He 
would have told us.” Surely He would ! We can trust 
His faithfulness and honesty this far, at least! Then, 
since He has not tbld us that there is any cause for fear 
or anxiety, but, on the contrary, has assured us that 
there is none, how is it that we can dare to doubt? 




218 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


I confess it is a mystery to me. As far as I can find 
out, Mahommedans do not doubt, neither do the wor¬ 
shippers of idols. It seems reserved for Christians to 
make a sort of religion of their doubting, and to look 
upon it as the indication of a humble and proper frame 
of mind. As if the doubting, which would be con¬ 
sidered most unfilial and wicked in an earthly child 
towards its earthly father, becomes pious and beautiful 
in the child of God towards his Heavenly Father. 

And yet I know well how reasonable and sensible our 
doubts seem. “ Look, Peter,” the tempter most probably 
said, “look at those roaring waves, and remember that 
such a thing was never heard of as that a man could 
walk on water. It is really presumptuous for you to try 
to do it. The Master does not mean for you actually 
to go to Him. It is only a figure of speech; and if 
you do not want to be drowned, you had better get back 
to a safe place on the ship as fast as you can.” The 
amazing thing to me is, however, that Peter could listen 
for a moment to these suggestions of doubt, when he 
had heard the Master’s command. And yet in the face 
of hundreds of similar commands and promises, Chris¬ 
tians now listen to far worse suggestions of doubt, and 
even think they are pious and humble in so doing! It 
is simply amazing! 

“ If, then, God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the 
field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven ; how much more 
will He clothe you, O ye of little faith ? And seek not ye 
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of 
doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the 
world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have 
need of these things” (Luke xii. 28-30). 



WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 


219 


To say that our Father “knoweth” we have a need, 
seemed to our Lord a sufficient guarantee that of course 
He would supply it. It is enough for the child if its 
mother knows that it has need of anything. Her 
mother love compels her, if it lies within her power, to 
supply that need. And it is the same with God. He 
who made the mother’s heart must have one at least 
equally as motherly ; and to know we have a need, must 
mean that He will unfailingly supply it. If then we are 
of “ doubtful mind,” it is an implication on our part that 
either He does not know our need, or else that, knowing 
it, He does not care. Surely we cannot want to be 
guilty of such an insult towards God as this. Paul says, 
“ I know whom I have believed, and therefore am 
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have 
committed to Him.” If we knew Him, as Paul did, 
we also should be equally persuaded; for we would see 
how utterly impossible it is that He could ever fail us. 
Men may fail us, but God never ! Every doubt, therefore, 
is in reality a libel against God; for it is an implication 
that He who has promised is not faithful, but unfaithful, 
and that He cannot be fully trusted. 

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee! be not dis¬ 
mayed ; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I 
will help thee : yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand 
of my righteousness. For I, the Lord thy God, will hold 
thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help 
thee. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; 

I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the 
Holy One of Israel” (Isa. xli. 10-14). 

The Bible is full of these “Fear nots,” with their 
accompanying assurances that God wiil be with us, and 



220 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


will certainly care for us. If we believe these assurances, 
no enemies and no dangers, whether they are outward or 
inward, can cause us a moment’s fear or doubt; for 
we will know that the Lord our God is stronger than 
any enemy the universe contains, and we will say with 
the Apostle, “ If God be for me, who can be against 
me?” 

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy 
rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Ps. xxiii. 4). 

Not even the valley of the shadow of death can cause 
the trusting heart to fear. The fact of God’s presence 
is enough always to make the “ fearful heart ” strong, 
let the circumstances be what they may. 

“ Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble 
knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, 
fear not; behold your God will come with vengeance, even 
God with a recompense: He will come and save you” 
(Isa. xxxv. 3, 4). 

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of 
power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. i. 7). 

The “ spirit of fear ” does not belong to the Christian 
religion. It is never enumerated among the “ fruits of 
the Spirit.” It is not given to us from God. On the 
contrary, it is always condemned as being alien to the 
whole idea of Christianity, and as coming purely and 
only from unbelief. 

“Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God 
furnish a table in the wilderness ? Behold, He smote the 
rock, that the waters gushed out, and 'the streams over¬ 
flowed ; can He give bread also ? can He provide flesh for 




WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 


221 


His people ? Therefore the Lord heard this, and was 
wroth : so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also 
came up against Israel; because they believed not in God, 
and trusted not in His salvation” (Ps. lxxviii. 19-22). 

All doubts are a “ speaking against God.” I know a 
great many of my readers will start at this and exclaim, 
“Oh, no, that is a mistake. Doubts often arise from 
humility. We feel ourselves to be so unworthy of the 
love and care of God that we cannot believe it is pos¬ 
sible for Him to love or care for us. It is not that we 
doubt Him, but we doubt ourselves.” This sounds very 
plausible; but let us see what it amounts to. Does God’s 
love for us depend on the kind of people we are ? Does 
He love only good people? or does He love sinners? 
The Bible says, “ God commendeth His love toward us in 
that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” And 
again it says : “ But God who is rich in mercy, for His 
great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were 
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” 
Can it be called humility to question this, and to doubt 
whether, after all, He really does love us who are sinners ? 
We would not think it humility on the part of our chil¬ 
dren, if, when they were naughty, they should begin to 
doubt our love for them, and, because they had been 
disobedient, should be anxious lest we shpuld neglect 
them and fail to protect their interests. True humility, 
no matter how unworthy it may feel itself to be, instead 
of creating doubts, extinguishes them, because it would 
not presume to doubt God’s promises of love and care. 

“ We love Him because He first loved us,” is what 
the Bible says. But we are continually tempted to reverse 
this order and say, “ He loves us because we first loved 



222 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


Him; ” and then, finding our own love so weak and 
poor, we naturally begin to doubt whether He loves us 
at all. We can never do anything but doubt, just so 
long as we think God’s love for us is dependent upon 
the amount of our love for Him. But to think this, is 
to fly in the face of every word He has said about it. 
Our duty, therefore, is to throw aside every doubt, and 
to let ourselves go in an unwavering belief in the 
unmerited but unfailing love of God. 

“ But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most 
holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in 
the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus 
Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 20, 21). 

To keep ourselves in the love of God, or, in other 
words, to keep ourselves in God’s love, does not mean, as 
so many think, to keep ourselves loving Him. It means 
to settle ourselves down, as it were, into His love as 
an absolute and unalterable fact, to take up our abode 
in it, and to stay in it forever. It means never to doubt 
His love, never to question it, never to fear losing it; but 
to believe in it, and trust it, despite all seemings to the 
contrary, utterly and steadfastly and for ever. 

“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and 
earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the 
riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His 
Spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your 
hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the 
breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know 
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might 
be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph. iii. 14-19). 




WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 


223 


The soul that is “rooted and grounded” in the love 
of God, and that keeps itself there unwaveringly, has 
got into a region where doubt is impossible. For* who 
could doubt love ? It is in the very nature of love to 
do the very best it possibly can for those it loves. This 
is its law. Therefore, when once we believe in the love 
of God, we know, without a shadow of doubt, that we 
cannot possibly have anything to fear. 

There is no fear in love • but perfect love casteth out 
fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not 
made perfect in love” (1 John iv. 18). 

He that feareth has never yet fully believed in the 
“ huge tenderness ” of the love of God ! 

“ Pining souls, come nearer Jesus, 

And, oh, come not doubting thus, 

But with love that trusts more bravely 
His huge tenderness for us.” 

Doubts are a complete barrier to any success in the 
Christian life. Spiritual things work altogether by the 
law of faith, and doubts are barriers that effectually 
hinder the working of this law. 

“He that overcometh shall inherit all things ; and I will 
be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful 
and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and 
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars 
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and 
brimstone, which is the second death ” (Rev. xxi. 7, 8). 

It is a most significant fact that among the sins which 
are here declared to plunge a soul into the “lake of fire” 
that of being “ fearful and unbelieving ” heads the list. 





224 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


All that this means I do not know, but I am certain it 
must mean this much, that to be fearful and unbelieving 
is as absolute a hindrance to the spiritual life as many 
things which we consider far greater sins. And this 
leaves us no alternative as to whether or not we shall 
go on indulging in the habit of doubt. We dare not do 
it. We must get rid of our doubts somehow. The only 
question is, How? To this I would reply that there is 
only one way. We must give them up. We must 
make a surrender of them to the Lord, and must trust 
Him to deliver us from their power. Doubts are a 
“speaking against God,” and are consequently sin. 
They are not an infliction, but a rebellion. We can 
never indulge in them for a single moment without dis¬ 
obeying our Lord, who has left us, as His last command, 
this law, “ Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it 
be afraid.” No matter how plausible our doubts may 
seem, we simply must turn our backs on them, and 
refuse to entertain them for a moment. I believe my¬ 
self it is a good thing to sign a pledge against doubting, 
just as one signs a pledge against drink. This means 
that you give up all liberty to doubt, that, in short, you 
make an entire consecration or surrender of your doubt¬ 
ing. And if you do this, the Lord, as He always does 
when anything is surrendered to Him, will take possession 
of your doubts, and will deliver you from their power. 

You must hand your doubting over to Him, as you 
do your temper or your pride, and must trust Him to 
deliver you from doubting, just as you do to deliver you 
from getting angry. The great point is to give up the 
liberty to doubt. The trouble lies in the fact that, in 
this matter of doubting, most people reserve to them- 




WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 


225 


selves a little liberty, because they feel it is impossible 
always to trust and never to doubt. “ I do not want to 
doubt any more,” we will say, or «I hope I shall not;” 
but it is hard to come to the point of saying, “ I will 
not. I give up all liberty to doubt for ever.’’ But no 
surrender is really effectual until it reaches the point 
of saying “I will not.” Therefore our only hope for 
victory lies in an utter surrender of all liberty to doubt 
for ever. 

I do not mean that doubts will not come. As lon^ 
as we are in this body of flesh I suppose we shall be 
subject to the temptation to doubt. But while we can¬ 
not help the temptation coming, we can help entertain¬ 
ing it, and giving it an abiding-place in our hearts. We 
must treat every temptation to doubt as a temptation 
to sin, and must refuse to entertain it for a single 
moment. It will help us in this if we begin to assert 
by faith the exact opposite of our doubt. Doubts always 
fly when faith appears on the scene. If the doubt, for 
instance, says, “ God does not love you,” faith must 
declare more emphatically than ever, “God does love 
me. He says He does, and I know it is true.” Kill 
your doubts by refusing to listen to them for a moment. 
Doubts cannot live where they find no nourishment. 

Therefore, dear doubting souls, this is what you must 
do. You must hand over your doubting to the Lord 
and must “set your faces like a flint” never to indulge 
in doubts again. 

“For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not 
be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, 
and I know that I shall not be ashamed ” (Isa. 1 . 7). 

A little experience in the life of one of my children 

p 





226 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


may be helpful. One night as I was tucking her up in 
bed she said to me, “ Well, mother, I have had my first 
doubt.” “ What was it?” I asked in great surprise. 
“Oh,” she replied, “Satan told me that God did not 
love me, because I was such a naughty little girl \ and 
he said I was a foolish child to believe God loved me, 
even if my mother did say He did.” “What did thee 
say ? ” I asked. “ Oh,” she replied, “ I just said, ‘ Satan, 
I am going to believe it, and I will believe it; so 
there ! ’ And then he did not bother me any more.” 

Of course I was delighted at the child’s sensible way 
of dealing with her doubts, and encouraged her all I 
could always to treat them after this fashion; and did 
not suppose I should hear of them again. But the next 
night after she was in bed, and I went for my good-night 
kiss, she greeted me with the words, “Well, mother, 
Satan has been at it again.” “What did he say this 
time?” I asked. “Why, he said,” she replied, “ that the 
Bible was not true, and that only foolish people believed 
it.” “ And what did thee answer him ? ” I asked. “ Oh,” 
she replied, “ I just said, ‘Satan, shut thy mouth!’ and 
he ran away as fast as he could.” 

That little child had learned how to treat her doubts. 
May the blessed Spirit teach each one of us how to do 
the same ! 


A TALK WITH ST. PETER. 

BY GEORGE MAC DONALD. 

“ O Peter, wherefore didst thou doubt? 

In truth the scud flew fast about; 

But He was there, whose walking foot 
Could make the wandering hills take root; 




WHEREFORE DIDST THOU DOUBT? 227 


And He had said, * Come down to me, 

Else had thy foot not touched the sea ; 

Christ did not call thee to thy grave ; 

Was it the boat that made thee brave?” 

“ Easy for thee , who wast not there, 

To think thou, more than I, could’st dare ! 

It hardly fits thee though to mock, 

Scared as thou wast that railway shock ! 

Who said’st this mom, ‘ Wife, we must go ; 

The plague will soon be here, I know.’ 

Who, when thy child slept (not to death), 
Said’st, ‘ Nothing now is worth a breath 1 ’ ” 

True ! True ! Great Fisherman ! I stand 
Rebuked by waves seen from the land ! 

Even the lashing of the spray, 

The buzzing fears of any day, 

Rouse anxious doubt lest I should find 
God neither in the spray nor wind. 

But now and then, as once to thee, 

The Master turns and looks at me ! 

And now to Him I turn. My Lord, 

Help me to fear nor fire nor sword ; 

Let not the cross itself appal ! 

Know I not Thee, the Lord of all 1 
Let reeling brain nor fainting heart 
Wipe out the sureness that Thou art! 

Oh, deeper, Thou, than doubt can go, 

Make my poor hope cry out, “ I know 1 ” 

And so when Thou shalt please to say, 

“ Come to my side,” some stormy way, 

My feet, attuning to Thy will, 

Shall, heaved and tossed, walk toward Thee stilL 
No leaden heart shall sink me where 
Prudence is crowned with cold despair ; 

But I shall reach and clasp Thy hand, 

And, on the sea, forget the land 1 





LESSON XIX. 

TEMPTATION. 

Foundation Text: —“Blessed is the man that endureth tempta¬ 
tion : for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which 
the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.”— -JAMES i. 12. 

If there is one thing more than another that we need to 
have on a good sound common-sense basis, it is the 
subject of temptation; for nothing, I feel convinced, is 
more misunderstood. Moreover, temptation is an affair 
of every day, and in a book of lessons for every-day life, 
it is of vital importance. 

The first common-sense thing that I would say concern¬ 
ing temptation is, that temptation is not sin. The second 
thing I would say is the same, and the third thing is the 
same also. It may seem to some as if this hardly needed 
to be said so emphatically, because every one must already 
know it; but I believe, on the contrary, that very few 
really know it. People often assent to a thing as a 
theory, which practically they do not in the least believe; 
and this is just one of these tilings. No doubt every one 
who reads this lesson will say he entirely unites with my 
proposition that temptation is not sin ; but, as a matter of 
practical experience, how many act on this belief? Our 
foundation text tells us that it is a blessed thing to endure 
temptation; but do we really believe it to be a blessed 

228 


TEMPT A TION. 


229 


thing ? Do we not mostly feel, instead, that it is a cursed 
thing; and that we must be dreadful sinners just because 
we are tempted ? A flood of evil thoughts is poured 
into our souls, proud thoughts, unkind thoughts, mali¬ 
cious thoughts, jealous thoughts. They are thoughts we 
loathe, and yet that we seem to originate; and we feel 
that we must be very wicked and very far off from God 
to be able to have such thoughts at all It is as though 
a burglar should break into a man’s house to steal, and 
when the master of the house tries to resist him and drive 
him out, should turn around and accuse the owner of 
being himself the thief! It is the enemy’s grand ruse 
for entrapping us. He whispers his suggestions of evil 
into our hearts, and then turns around and says, “ Oh, 
how wicked you must be to think of such things! It is 
very plain yoiucannot be a child of God ; for if you were, 
it would have been impossible for such dreadful thoughts 
to have entered your heart.” This reasoning sounds so 
very plausible, that the Christian feels as if it must Le 
true, and is plunged into the depths of discouragement 
and despair. But the divine teaching about temptation 
and the teaching of common-sense as well, is very 
different. 

“ My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers 
temptations ; knowing this, that the trying of your faith 
vvorketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, 
that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” 
(James i. 2-4). 

If it is a sin to be tempted, should we be exhorted to 
“ count it all joy ” when we are tempted ? Is it not rather 
a plain indication that temptation is one of God’s divine 





230 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

instruments in our life discipline, and that without it 
we could never become “perfect and entire, wanting 
nothing”? 

“ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, 
if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold tempta¬ 
tions : that the trial of your faith, being much more precious 
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, 
might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the 
appearing of Jesus Christ” (i Peter i. 6 , 7)* 

Temptations try our faith; and we are worth nothing 
if we are not tried. They develop our spiritual virtues; 
and this development is essential to our true growth. 
How shallow would be our spirituality if it were not for 
the discipline of temptation ! There is, therefore, in the 
divine plan evidently a “ needs be ” for the manifold 
temptations” that beset us on every hand during the 
“ season” of this earthly life. The.“trial of our faith ” 
is so much more precious to the Lord, and so much 
more valuable for us, than any present comfort or ease, 
that, much as He loves us, and, indeed, because He loves 
us, He is willing even to see us “ in heaviness,” on account 
of our temptations. This was His way with the children 
of Israel. When God took them into the promised land, 
He did not drive out at once all their enemies, but left 
some to “ prove them,” that He might know whether or 
not they would “ hearken unto the commandments of the 
Lord.” (See Judges ii. 21-23, and iii. 1-4.) 

I have sometimes thought that temptation is to our 
soul’s health what vaccination is to our body’s health, a 
process by which we are prepared for the victory over 
far worse attacks of far worse diseases. 





TEMPTATION. 


231 


“For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried 
us, as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the net; 
thou laidst affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused 
men to ride over our heads ; we went through fire and 
through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy 
place ” (Ps. lxvi. 10-13). 

Silver is tried that it may be purified, and we are tried 
that we may be at last “brought out into a wealthy 
place.” 

Even of our Lord it is said that He “learned obedience 
by the things that He suffered; ” and among the worst of 
these things must have been His temptations. 

“For we have not an High Priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all 
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us 
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we 
may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need ” 
(Heb. iv. 15, 16). 

“For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, 
He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb. ii. 18). 

If we believe that our Lord was really tempted “ in 
all points ” like as we are, we cannot but be convinced 
that temptation is not sin, and that it is possible to have 
temptations of every kind, and yet be “without sin.” 
We may be sure of this, also, that wherever temptation 
is, there is the Lord, waiting to succour. “ Where wert 
thou, Lord, while I was being tempted?” cried the saint 
in the desert. “Close beside thee all the while, my 
son, giving thee the needed grace to conquer thy tempta¬ 
tion,” was the tender reply. 

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is 



232 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


common to man : but God is faithful, who will not suffer 
you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will with 
the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be 
able to bear it” (i Cor. x. 13). 

Fendlon says concerning temptation : “ We must never 
be astonished at temptations, be they never so outrageous. 
On this earth all is temptation. Crosses tempt us by 
irritating our pride, and prosperity by flattering it. Our 
life is a continual combat, but one in which Jesus Christ 
fights for us. While temptations rage around us, we 
must pass on unmoved, as the traveller overtaken by a 
storm simply wraps his cloak more closely about him, 
and pushes on more vigorously towards his destined 
home.” 

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of 
temptations ” (2 Peter ii. 9, first clause). 

Since the Lord “knoweth how” to deliver us out of 
temptation, He is surely the one to whom we should 
apply for deliverance; for it is very plain that we do not 
“ know how ” to deliver ourselves. There is not one of 
us who has not had practical proof of our own inability 
to deliver ourselves, so that I do not need to argue on 
this point. And yet, so foolish are we and ignorant, that 
most of us go on trying in the same old ineffectual 
ways, vainly thinking that if we only try harder, we shall 
certainly succeed at last. Our usual plan is to scold 
ourselves, and exhort ourselves, and weep over ourselves, 
and suffer agonies of remorse, and repent in dust and 
ashes; and then make stronger and more binding reso¬ 
lutions than ever, and try again, only to be again defeated. 



TEMPT A TION. 


*33 


Sometimes, it is true, we seem to conquer for a little 
while, and we rejoice over our victory, and think it will 
be permanent; when suddenly all our defences seem to 
be taken from us, and we are overcome worse than ever. 
We wonder why this is, and often cannot help feeling 
that in some way we have been hardly treated by God, 
that, after all our efforts, such failures should be allowed 
to come. But the truth is, that there is only one “ way 
of escape” from the power of temptation; and because 
we have not taken that “ way ” our failure is inevitable. 
We may resist this fact as much as we please, and may 
try every other possible plan, but sooner or later we have 
got to come back to the simple truth that there is only 
one Deliverer from temptation, and that that Deliverer is 
the Lord; and only one way of victory, and that that 
way is by faith. 

“ When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, 
and seest horses and chariots, and a people more than 
thou, be not afraid of them : for the Lord thy God is with 
thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 
And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the battle, 
that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, 
and shall s iy unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this 
day unto battle against your enemies : let not your hearts 
faint; fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified 
because of them ; for the Lord your God is He that goeth 
with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save 
you ” (Deut. xx. 1^4). 

“The Lord your God is He that goeth with you to 
fight for you against your enemies, to save you.” This 
is the whole secret. I onGe asked a Christian, whose 
life of victory over temptation had greatly impressed me, 




234 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


what was his secret. He replied that it all lay in this, 
that the Lord fought for him and he held his peace. 
“ Once,” he said, “ I used to feel that I had to do the 
fighting myself; and it always seemed to me that the 
Lord was behind me to help me if the emergency became 
too great, but that for the most part He looked on, and 
left the fighting to me. But now,” he continued, “I 
put the Lord in front, and He does the fighting, while I 
look on and behold the victory.” 

In Ephesians we have a description of what the 
Christian’s armour is ; and this will further elucidate the 
subject. 

“ Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, 
that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and 
having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your 
loins girt about with truth, ^and having on the breast¬ 
plate of righteousness ; and your feet shod with the pre¬ 
paration of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the 
shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all 
the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of 
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word 
of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication 
in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance 
and supplication for all saints” (Eph. vi. 13-18). 

“ Loins girt with truth,” the “ breastplate of righteous¬ 
ness,” the “ shield of faith,” the “ helmet of salvation,” 
and the “ sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” 
—all this is the armour of faith. Our Lord used this 
armour in His conflict with temptation in the wilder¬ 
ness. (See Luke iv. 1-13.) This story, it seems to me, 
gives us a very vivid insight into the reality of the 
declaration that He was “in all points” tempted like as 





TEMPTATION. 


235 


we are; and it also shows us how we are to conquer. 
The weapon He used was the “ sword of the Spirit,” 
which is, the Apostle tells us, the “ word of God.” He met 
each temptation with some saying out of the Bible, intro¬ 
ducing them all by the words “ It is written.” I believe 
that the truth as it is revealed in the Scriptures of truth, 
is always our most effectual weapon against temptation. 
I say weapon, because I do not mean that it is our 
power. The power to conquer is from the Lord alone, 
but the weapons are put into our hands; and, to my 
mind, chief among these is the one used by Christ, /.<?., 
the word or truth of God. Practically I believe that 
there is nearly always some “ It is written ” with which 
we can meet and conquer almost every form of 
temptation. 

I remember an occasion once in my own life when 
I proved this. I had just laid down a new carpet in my 
drawing-room, and was very desirous of keeping it fresh. 
My husband wanted to have a Bible-class of rough 
working-men with their hob-nailed shoes to meet there 
every week, but I objected greatly, and felt very sure 
my nice new carpet would be entirely spoiled. But I 
found I was not comfortable, as a Christian woman, in 
placing myself in the position of putting the claims of a 
carpet above the claims of human souls, and I was 
sorely tossed and troubled. Then I bethought me of 
this sword of the Spirit, and wondered if I could use 
it in this case, thinking to myself that there could not 
surely be any “ it is written ” about carpets. However 
I took up my sword and began to say inwardly and rather 
forlornly “ It is written,” when there flashed into my mind 
—Yes, it is written, “take joyfully the spoiling of your 



236 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


goods.” I confronted the enemy with this “ sword of the 
Spirit,” and it conquered for me. I was henceforward 
content to have my carpet or anything else, if necessary, 
“ spoiled ” in the service of the Lord. 

I know by a thousand experiences that in every con¬ 
flict with the temptation to doubt the love and care of 
God, there is no weapon so effectual as this sword of 
the Spirit. All doubts must necessarily fly before the 
confident assertion of some one or more of the in¬ 
numerable assertions in the Bible of the all-embracing, 
unchangeable love of God. I have often routed a whole 
army of doubts by the simple words, repeated in un¬ 
wavering faith, “It is written, that God is love!” Try 
it, dear reader, and see. 

“Ye are they which have continued with me in my 
temp'tations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my 
Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may.eat and drink 
at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging 
the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke xxii. 28—30). 

One great mistake we make about temptations is to 
feel as if the time spent in enduring them was all lost 
time. Days pass, perhaps, and we have been so beset 
with temptations as to feel as if we had made no 
progress. But it often happens that we have been serv¬ 
ing the Lord far more truly while thus “continuing with 
Him ” in temptation, than we could have done in our 
times of comparative freedom from it. Temptation is as 
much an attack against God as against ourselves, and we 
are fighting His battles quite as much as our own when 
we resist it. Moreover the “kingdom” which has been 
“ appointed ” to us can only come through this pathway 



TEMPT A TION. 


2 37 


of manifold temptations. The Apostle, when enumera^ 
ting the qualifications and characteristics of those who 
had entered this kingdom, and had been patterns of 
faith in past ages, names temptation as one of the 
chie r . 

“ They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were 
tempted* were slain with the sword : they wandered about 
in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, 
tormented ; (of whom the world was not worthy) ” (Heb. i. 
37 . 3 «)- 

When next we are tempted*, let us remember that those 
“of whom the world was not worthy” were tempted 
also, and we shall not be so discouraged. Discourage¬ 
ment is the very worst thing possible with which to meet 
temptation. If we are afraid of falling, we are almost 
sure to fall. A very wise writer on Christian experience 
once said that in order to overcome temptation a cheer¬ 
ful confidence that we shall overcome is the first thing, 
and the second thing, and the third thing, and the thing 
all the way through. The power of temptation lies largely 
in the fainting of our own hearts. The children of 
Israel were continually warned against this. No matter 
how terrible their enemies might seem, God’s word 
always was, “Dread not, neither be afraid of them.” 
And the reason given was invariably the same, “ The 
Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” 
(See Exod. xiv. 13, 14; Deut. i. 20-30, &c. &c.) 

The Lord fights for us now just as really as He fought 
for the Israelites then; and we have no more business 
to be discouraged at our enemies than they had. We all 
see clearly that it was no sin for them to have enemies 



238 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


to fight, and we ought to see as clearly that it is no sin 
for us. Temptation, therefore, is under no circumstances 
to be regarded as a sin. 

Sometimes, however, our discouragement arises from 
what we think is a righteous grief and disgust at our¬ 
selves, that such things can be any temptation to us. It 
seems as if we must be great sinners, or we could not be 
so tempted. But if we probe it to the bottom, we shall 
find that this feeling really arises from a mortified self- 
love. We have expected better things of ourselves than 
to be open to the possibility of such temptations, and 
we are sorely disappointed in ourselves; and are dis¬ 
couraged in consequence. This mortification and dis¬ 
couragement over our temptations are really a far worse 
condition than the temptations themselves, for they arise 
altogether from wounded vanity and self-love. Dis¬ 
couragement is never a fruit of humility, but always of 
pride. 

“ But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of 
his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, 
it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth 
forth death” (James i. 14, 15). 

It is no sin to be “ enticed; ” the sin comes only when 
we yield to the enticement. The word translated “lust” 
here is the same word that is used by our Lord when 
He said in Luke xxii. 15, “ With desire have I desired to 
eat this Passover with you.” It signifies a great wish for 
something. Now it is no sin to desire anything. I may 
see an orange in a shop-window, and feel a desire for it, 
but this is not a sin. It is only when the desire “con¬ 
ceives ” or begets theft, that sin enters. A great many 




TEMPTATION . 


239 


tender-hearted Christians torture themselves with anxious 
self-examinations to see whether they may not have 
yielded at least a sort of half-consent in the moment 
of temptation. F6ndlon says this is all wrong. He 
tells us that by examining too closely whether we have 
not been guilty of some unfaithfulness, we incur the risk 
of being again entangled in the temptation, after we have 
repulsed it. We ought to treat ourselves in such matters 
with as much care as we would treat our watches. If 
we fancy a watch is out of order, we are never so foolish 
as to take it apart and examine it ourselves in order to 
discover what is wrong. We are too well aware of the 
delicate nature of a watch’s inside machinery to risk 
meddling with it. But we take it to a jeweller, who, 
having made watches, understands them, and can dis¬ 
cover without risk what is the matter with them; and 
who, above all, knows how to put them in order again. 
And similarly, only the God, who made the delicate 
machinery of our inward being, is able to examine it 
without risk, or can know how to put it in order. The 
only safe thing to do, therefore, in the matter of tempta¬ 
tion is simply, and without self-analysis, to commit our¬ 
selves to the Lord, and leave with Him the management 
of the whole matter. 

“ Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the 
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he 
may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith” (1 Peter 
V. 7, 8). 

It is no sin to hear the “ roarings ” of the devil, but it 
becomes sin if we stop and “roar” with him, or yield to 
his roarings. It is no sin to hear wicked men swearing 



240 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


along the street: it only becomes sin when we stop 
and join in with t'hem. An old writer says, “ Eye not 
the temptation, but eye the Lord; ” and this expresses a 
profound truth. I believe it is often unwise even to 
pray much about our temptations, for the fact of praying 
keeps our mind fixed on them. The best way is a 
simple turning of the heart to the Lord, as a child to its 
mother, looking away from the temptation, and “looking 
unto Jesus,” and leaving Him to deal with it as He 
pleases. 

Fendlon says concerning this: “A direct struggle 
with temptations only serves to augment them. We 
should simply turn away from the evil, and draw nearer 
to God. A little child on perceiving a monster, does not 
wait to fight with it, and will scarcely turn its eyes towards 
it, but quickly shrinks into the bosom of its mother, sure 
of safety there. If we do otherwise, and in our weakness 
attempt to attack our enemies, we shall find ourselves 
wounded, if not totally defeated ; but by remaining in 
the simple presence of God, we shall find instant supplies 
of strength for our support.” 

“ Have not I commanded thee ? Be strong and of a 
good courage • be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed ; 
for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou 
goest” (Josh. i. 9). 

“ For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: 
and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our 
faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that 
believeth that Jesus is the Son of God ?” (1 John v. 4, 5). 

It is God’s purpose that we who are born of Him 
should overcome the world; but we can only overcome 



TEMPTATION . 


241 


in one way, and that is, not by struggle, or effort, or 
conflict, but by faith. We must put the Lord between 
ourselves and our temptations. We must meet them with 
a confident trust in His power and willingness to conquer 
them for us, and must be sure of victory beforehand. 
And above all, we must not blame ourselves for being 
tempted, but must remember always that “blessed is 
the man who endureth temptation,” and must obey the 
command to “count it all joy when we fall into divers 
temptations.” 

“ Be of good cheer,” says our Divine Master, “ for I 
have overcome the world.” It is an immense help in 
meeting temptation to meet it as an already conquered foe. 
In earthly battles, the defeated army is disorganised and 
surrenders, the moment they find out that the opposite 
side has discovered their defeat. In our Civil War in 
America the war was prolonged far beyond the necessary 
time, because the North had not yet found out that the 
South was defeated; and the South knew this, and kept 
up the fight But the moment the South found that 
the North had discovered the fact of their defeat, they 
collapsed without another battle. Sin is for us an already 
conquered foe. The Lord Je$us Christ has met and 
conquered it, and we are, if we only knew it, more than 
conquerors in Him. Like Jehoshaphat and the children 
of Israel, if we will go out to battle against our enemies 
singing songs of victory, the Lord will set ambushments 
against them, and when we reach them, behold, they will 
all be “dead bodies.” (See 2 Chron. xx. 1-30.) 

“ Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, 
and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to 

Q 



242 


EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 


Jerusalem with joy; for the Lord had made them to re¬ 
joice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem 
with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the House of 
the Lord. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms 
of those countries, when they had heard that the Lord 
fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of 
Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round 
about.” 

“So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God 
gave him rest round about.” These lessons are closed 
with an earnest prayer that they may be used of the 
Lord to help some souls into this same “realm of 
quiet ” in their every-day lives; to the end that they, 
too, as was Israel, may be a testimony to all who know 
them, of the reality of a God who always gives to those 
who trust in Him, “ rest round about.” 


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Twelve New Year Sermons. 8vo, cloth. * so 

Twelve Sermons on the Resurrection. 8vo, cloth!.! .* \ Q 

o fi ,m^ e t Chers £ et aid > n preparing Easter or funeral 
sermons from this volume. Good to present to those who 
have lost loved ones."-National BaftiTt. 

Twelve SoulWinning Sermons. 8vo, cloth. . 

whtrh le ^f d Mr. Spurgeon as the twelve sermons under 
Suits. h kaVC beCn ^ m ° St marked and permanent 

Twelve Striking Sermons. 8vo, cloth .. . so 

BIOGRAPHIES 

Charles H. Spurgeon. 


doth 


. T’his is a very entertaining biography of the great Lon- 
makCS VCry de “& htful reading.” — The 

Charles H. Spurgeon. His Life and Ministry. By Jesse 
Page. World 5 Benefactors" Series. i 2 mo, cloth.75 

New York. FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY. Chicago. 



























NEW AND IMPROVED EDITION. 

Bible History 

BY 

Rev. ALFRED EDERSHEIM, D.D.. Ph.D. 

12MO. CLOTH. 

7 Volnmes Each, $1.00 The Set, Boxed, $6.00 


They are pre-eminently suggestive books. They excite in¬ 
terest , they stimulate inquiry , and they point the way to fields 
of thought that are entirely new. or to old fields that shine in 
new richness and beauty from the light that is thrown upon 
them. There is abundance of material for attractive and 
profitable sermons in the histories and the personal sketches 
in the Old Testament. To ministers and teachers they will be 
found to be a real Biblical treasury. 


PRESS NOTICES. 

The Presbyterian. 

“ There is no doubt that this author was qualified in a very 
remarkable way to prepare such a history as this. . . . 

Dr. Edersheim’s intimate familiarity with Jewish life and 
modes of thought, and his ability to say so well what he 
knows, enable him to paint with great vividness and dis¬ 
tinctness the scenes he describes and the events which he 
narrates. . . We heartily recommend it to our readers.’ 

The Clergyman’s Magazine. . . 

“ In the easiest, simplest way imaginable, in unostenta¬ 
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The World Before the Flood, and History of the 
Patriarchs. 

The Exodus and Wanderings in the Wilderness. 
Israel in Canaan Under Joshua and the Judges. 
Israel Under Samuel, Saul and David, to the Birth 
of Solomon. 

the Birth of Solomon to 


Ahab to the Decline of 


Israel and Judah from 
the Reign of Ahab. 

Israel and Judah from 
the Two Kingdoms. 

Israel and Judah from the Decline of the Two 
Kingdoms to the Assyrian and Babylonian 
Captivity. Containing Full Scripture Refer¬ 
ences and Subject Indexes to the Whole Series. 



















By P a t:hs of B*W e Knowledge 


12mo. 


Cloth. 


.... volumes which are being issued under the above 
tn.e fully deserve success. They have been entrusted to 
scholars who have a special acquaintance with the sub¬ 
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By the Rev. J. King. With Illustra- 


8 . 


1. Cleopatra’s Needle. 

tions. 

2. Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments. By A. H. 

Sayce. LL.D. With Facsimiles from Photographs. i 20 

3. Recent Discoveries on the Temple Hilfct Jerusalem Bv 

the Rev. J. King, M.A. With Maps, Plans and Illustra¬ 
tions.; 

4. Babylonian J.if-c.id History. Ly E.A.Wallis Budge, M* A? 

jirusUaicu. x 2Q 

5 . Galilee in the Time of Christ. By Seiah Merrill, D.*D 

6. Egypt and ->yna. By Sir J. W. Dawson, F.G.S., FRS 

Second Edition, revised and enlarged. With many Illus¬ 
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7. Assyria : its Princes, Priests, and People. Bv A H 

Sayce, M.A., LL.D. Fully Illustrated.. 1 20 

The Dwellers on the Nile. By E. A. Wallis Budge, M A 

Fully Illustrated. .... 1.20 

9. The Diseases on the Bible. By Sir J. Risdon Bennett.. j.oo 

10. The Trees and Plants mentioned in the Bible. Bv W H 

Grosser, B.Sc. Illustrated... 

11. Animals of the Bible. By H 

Illustrations. . 

12. The Hittites; or, The Story of a Forgotton Empire. Bv 

A. H. Sayce, LL.D. Illustrated. IOO 

13. The Times of Isaiah. By A. H. Sayce, LL.D..80 

14. Modern Discoveries on the Site of Ancient Ephesus. Bv 

the late J. T. Wood, F.S./i. Fully Illustrated. 1.00 

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LL.D. Illustrations from Photographs by Mr. Flinders 
Petrie. 1.20 

17. Life and Times of Joseph in the Light of Egyptian Lore. 

By Rev. H. G. Tomkins, M.A. roo 

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A. H. Sayce, M.A., LL.D. i 2 mo., cloth. 1.00 

19. The Early Spread of Religious Ideas, especially in the 

Far East. By Dr. Edkins. i2mo., cloth. 1.20 

20. The Growth and Development of the English Printed 

Bible. By Richard Lovett, M.A. Illustrated by many 
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Chichester Hart. 


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BIBLE STUDIES 

COVERING THE INTERNATIONAL 
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSONS 
FOR 1894 

THE PENTATEUCH 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 

BY 

Rev. George F. Pentecost, D.D. 


i2mo. Cloth, $1.00 Paper, 60 cents 


Brief Extracts from the Numerous 

Pf^ELSS COMMENTATIONS 

ACCORDED TO PREVIOUS ISSUES 

“ Dr. Pentecost knows how to combine exposition with exege¬ 
sis so as both to inform the teacher’s mind and to inflame his 
heart.”— The New York Evangelist. 

“ Immensely helpful.”— The Central Baptist. 

“Remarkable for its helpfulness, suggestiveness, and com¬ 
pactness.”— The Presbyterian Quarterly. 

“ Places every lesson in a new and most interesting, as well as 
helpful light.”— The Oberlin Review. 

“Terse, plain, clear, and full of Gospel light.”— The Presby¬ 
terian Witness , Halifax, N. S. 

“Can not be commended too highly.”— The Christian at 
Work. 

“ Dr. Pentecost gives the wheat—has winnowed the chaff 
away .”— The Record of Christian Work. 

“ Among the most popular of the Sunday School commenta¬ 
ries”— The Episcopal Recorder. 

“ We can heartily recommend this volume.”— The Cumberland 
Presbyterian Review. 

“ Helpful and stimulating.”— The Advance , Chicago, Ill. 


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